To drop the numbers on the scale's readout, many people are going on diets; some are safe, others aren't. A few of the lose-weight-instantly programs are downright creative, but potentially dangerous.
There were several reasons Ken wanted to lose weight. His clothes weren’t fitting. His feet, ankles and knees were hurting. Eventually he couldn’t clip his cell phone to his belt and it hurt to laugh with “all that hanging over,” says the non-profit executive.
He went on a specialized diet, reducing sugar and simple carbohydrates, and lost 45 pounds.
Ken is also a Seventh-day Adventist. He belongs to an international faith community that has a 140-year history of teaching good health principles—no tobacco, no alcohol, and healthy food.
To drop the numbers on the scale’s readout, many people are going on diets; some are safe, others aren’t. A few of the lose-weight-instantly programs are downright creative, but potentially dangerous. Some people are on a vegetable-only diet. Others are eating only fat, and some are going vegan. Some dieters drink their sustenance with a liquid-only diet—not even touching solid food.
Has the western world gone crazy with dieting?
Currently some 64 percent of adults in the United States are overweight, and nearly a third are obese, according to the American Obesity Association (http://www.obesity.org). Many areas of the world are catching up to that rate.
Last year Southwest Airlines said it would charge some super-sized passengers for two seats. Passengers on small planes are now required to report their weight or step on a scale in response to the possible role of passengers’ weight in a North Carolina crash in January.
Are dieters eating less or just changing what they eat?
Dr. Allan Handysides, health ministries director for the Adventist world church, says the most important element of a diet is simply reducing the total number of calories. “Many diets alter the proportions of fats or carbohydrates in the diet,” he says. “But unless total calories are reduced, weight loss doesn’t occur. Balance must be achieved for long-term health. Diets that throw the system [out of balance] can cause illness.”
He says some diets emphasize ultra low fat; however, people substitute those calories with carbohydrates. “Reduce the total number of calories,” he says, “and the carbohydrates must be complex, which are found in whole foods.”
He warns against a high protein, high fat diet espoused in “Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution,” a book that has sat on a New York Times bestseller list for nearly 300 weeks. “It’s a very unhealthy diet,” says Handysides.
“It’s an excuse to eat all you like and still lose weight. In the long term, this diet of high protein, high fat will increase risk of high cholesterol and arteriosclerosis”—a change in the coronary arteries that leads to a heart attack. “We don’t want to throw the body into ketosis just to achieve weight loss.”
The American Institute for Cancer Research also has concerns about low carbohydrate, high protein diets. “We know…that a mostly plant based diet is cancer protective,” says Melanie Polk, director of nutrition education for AICR. “That means lots of veggies, fruits, whole grains and beans. One cannot eat this way on a low carbohydrate diet,” she says.
“A diet that does not include a wide variety of veggies and fruits will not contain the phytochemicals needed for disease protection.”
Obesity is less common in Africa and Asia but is more prevalent in urban areas, according to Gilbert Burnham, associate professor of international health at the school of public health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
[In Africa] “We’re seeing more problems with obesity and consequences of that—diabetes, particularly adult onset diabetes,” says Burnham. “We’re also seeing heart disease, which in the past didn’t exist in much of Africa.”
Burnham says Africans in urban areas have more access to refined foods, many of which have a lot of fat.
In a majority of countries in Europe, obesity has increased by 10 percent to 40 percent in the last decade.
In the United States, obesity is the second leading cause of preventable death, after smoking.
Racial minorities in the United States have higher rates of overweight and obesity, according to the American Obesity Association Web site. For women, the highest group is black, non-Hispanic, with 78 percent overweight and 50 percent obese. For men the highest group is Mexican Americans with 74 percent overweight and 29 percent obese.
Larry Becker, editor of Vibrant Life magazine, says dieters are losing weight because they’re consuming fewer calories. “It has nothing really to do with the formulas,” he says. “That’s the case with a lot of these diets.
“You can diet all you want, and you will lose weight…but in terms of keeping it off you’ve got to add in exercise, you’ve got to add in stress management techniques. There’s a whole lot more to keeping weight off than just counting your calories,” he says.
Becker points back to a church founder, Ellen G. White, who wrote about diet and nutrition, whose advice he says was pretty radical at the time. “Now science has shown just how right she was.”
It’s been a couple years since Ken started his diet. He still considers himself “on a diet”—watching what he eats, still cutting back on desserts and simple carbohydrates. Except for a few pounds during Christmas he has mostly kept the weight off. “I feel 10 years younger,” he says.