From the Teen Scene: Should You Go On A Diet?

What do the hula hoop, “high-protein diets,” and wearing your
clothes backwards have in common? They are all fads. Fads come
and go, but when it comes to fad diets, the health effects can
be permanent–especially for teenagers.

Not all teens who go on diets need to lose weight. Pressure from
friends, and sometimes parents, to be very slim may create a
distorted body image. Having a distorted body image is like
looking into a funhouse mirror: You see yourself as fatter than
you are.

A national survey of 11,631 high school students conducted by
the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found
that more than a third of the girls considered themselves
overweight, compared with fewer than 15 percent of the boys.
More than 43 percent of the girls reported that they were on a
diet–and a quarter of these dieters didn’t think they were
overweight. The survey found that the most common dieting
methods used were skipping meals, taking diet pills, and
inducing vomiting after eating.

“The teenage years are a period of rapid growth and
development,” points out Ronald Kleinman, M.D., chief of the
Pediatric Gastrointestinal and Nutrition Unit of Massachusetts
General Hospital in Boston. He explains that fad dieting can
keep teenagers from getting the calories and nutrients they need
to grow properly and that dieting can retard growth. Stringent
dieting may cause girls to stop menstruating, and will prevent
boys from developing muscles, he says. If the diet doesn’t
provide enough calcium, phosphorus and vitamin D, bones may not
lay down enough calcium. This may increase the risk of
osteoporosis later in life, although more studies are needed to
confirm this.

Instead of dieting because “everyone” is doing it or because you
are not as thin as you want to be, first finding out from a
doctor or nutritionist whether you are carrying too much body
fat for your age and height.

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