The craze of dieting has taken America by storm over the past few decades. Dieting has gone from eating healthier and working out, to a strict program of thinning out by starving yourself or overworking your body. The controversy of dieting showed up recently with the premise of cleansing for events such as prom and the approach of summer, and these ideas have brought about many unhealthy side effects.
“I had heard about this cleanse from my boss,” said senior Hila Gazar. “It consisted of only drinking a mix of lemon juice, honey, chili powder, and water and I drank that for two weeks without any food. I had chosen to do this cleanse because I wanted to lose a few pounds for prom and was very self conscious about my weight which pushed me through the toughness.”
The most common way people go about this action is through the detox diet. etox (otherwise known as cleansing) is a diet that is used to neutralize or eliminate toxins in your body through strict dieting that minimizes chemical intake, eating high fiber foods and foods that provide high sources of vitamins and nutrients. This type of dieting is fine, however, people have taken the idea out of proportion by starving the body and combining it with excessive physical activity. Due to your body’s lack of nutrients, the body begins to eat away at vital fat cells, thus destroying your body internally which could lead to dangerous outcomes.
Although most people have smart motives for dieting, the effects of the risky action come back and haunt not only your body, but effect you psychologically as well. Such as, leading subjects towards feeling uncomfortable with their image and making them want to over do dieting. This could be as simple as working out more than your body can handle, oras extreme as throwing up on purpose in order to lose weight. These problems come from extreme dieting or dieting improperly which result in major side effects. There are also many emotional effects to the idea of dieting. According to healthyeating.sfgate.com, the emotional effects of a bad diet are depression, anxiety, stress and poor self esteem. These are all contributing factors to people either overdieting or trying to overwork their bodies to lose weight in a short amount of time.
“The effects made me very tired, and I felt like I was starving myself most of the time and the gym did not help with my energy level. But I kept motivating myself with the results I had heard from it and with prom coming up at the time, I knew I had to keep it going,” said Gazar.
Overall, the idea of dieting has evolved from what it once was and has become a greater threat for people to take on.
BY: Dillon Schmidt // Staff Writer
