Dieting & Weight Gain in Children
Weight Loss Study Background
Obesity is a serious public health problem for both children and adults
in the United States. During the past two decades, the prevalence of overweight
adolescents in the United States has increased by 100 percent. Dieting
to lose weight is common among adolescent girls and is becoming more common
among adolescent boys.
Weight Loss Study Summary
A recent weight loss study finds dieting is not the answer when it comes
to children losing weight. The study finds dieting is not only ineffective
at weight loss but may actually promote weight gain.
Weight Loss Study Method
The weight loss study included 8,203 girls and 6,769 boys who were between
9 and 14 years old in 1996. The participants completed a questionnaire
twice between 1996 and 1999. The kids were asked if they were on a diet,
whether they were binge eaters, and their usual dietary intake. The body
mass index of the adolescents was also taken throughout the study.
Weight Loss Study Results
Researchers found in 1996, 25 percent of the girls and about 14 percent
of the boys were infrequent dieters and about 5 percent of the girls and
2 percent of the boys were frequent dieters. The study found the number
of girl dieters increased over the course of the study. The research also
found binge eating was more common among the girls, but in both the boys
and girls it was associated with dieting. Overall, the study reports during
the three years of follow-up, the dieters gained more weight than the
boys and girls who did not diet.
Weight Loss Study Conclusion
Drastic changes in dietary intake are rarely sustainable; thus, it is
not surprising that few people maintain weight losses. For children and
adolescents who are overweight, diets carefully supervised by a clinician
may be beneficial and appropriate; however, young people and adults who
are not severely overweight need to be encouraged to adopt a modest and
therefore sustainable weight control strategy
Source: Ivanhoe Newswire 2003
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