Dieting and Weight Loss Study: Children
Dieting Study Summary
Children who diet are more likely to gain weight in the long term than
those who eat normally, according to recent weight loss research. Over
16,000 boys and girls aged nine to 14 found those who said they were eating
fewer calories and exercising more actually gained weight.
Dieting Study Method
Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts followed the children
from 1996 to 1998. They monitored their eating habits by asking the children
to fill out questionnaires.
Dieting Study Results
They found that, around 30 percent of the girls and 16 percent of the
boys were dieting to one degree or another when the weight loss study
began. Even though the dieters reported being more active and getting
fewer calories than their peers, they gained more weight than non-dieters.
Girls who dieted less often gained slightly less weight, but still more
than non-dieters.
Dieting Study - Weight Control
The researchers speculated that the children who dieted could have put
on more weight because their metabolism became more efficient, requiring
fewer calories to maintain weight or become overweight. But they said
it was more likely that restrictive diet regimes were often not maintained
for long periods and were followed by binge eating.
In that scenario it would be the repeated cycles of overeating between
the restrictive diets that would be responsible for weight gain. Although
medically supervised weight control may be beneficial for overweight youths,
our data suggest that for many adolescents, dieting to control weight
is not only ineffective, it may actually promote weight gain.
Dieting Study Conclusion
Researchers said young people and adults who were not severely overweight
should be encouraged to adopt a modest and therefore sustainable weight
control strategy that includes physical activity and does not require
severe restriction of total calories.
Source: 2003 BBC News
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