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Positive and negative effects of dieting
Positive and negative effects of dieting
Positive and negative effects of dieting
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Summary
Sandra Aamodt is a neuroscientist and science writer that received her biophysics degree (undergraduate) from Johns Hopkins and her Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Rochester and then went on to do research at Yale. In her TED Talk, “Why dieting doesn’t usually work”, Aamodt talks about the brain and that hunger is controlled by it, specifically the hypothalamus. She then explains that there are “set points” for weight, and they depend on each individual. She then goes on to mention that dieting is really ineffective, in part due to the fact that our bodies have not yet evolved, and so our bodies believe that we are undergoing a famine when we eat less, so then fat is stored. She explains that 80% of girls have dieted by the time that they are 10. After that, she explains that there are 4 healthy habits (eating fruits and vegetables, exercise, not smoking, and drinking in moderation) that lead to a lower risk of death. However, weight does not correlate with that. Finally, she explains how to fix this problem: mindful eating. She states that understanding the bo...
Portion control is psychologically proven to lessen or limit an individual’s intake of any food. According to Dr. Katherine Appleton (2014), any given amount of food over the recommended serving size will be finished by an individual because it is considered normal to finish a plate for a meal. If the amount of food were to be changed, the amount of intake would change as well. This psychology study is based off of an individual’s perception on what is considered “a normal serving size” (Appleton, 2014). Portion control requires self discipline, but if Pam were to regulate her serving sizes, she could greatly decrease her caloric
The authors explain that a “fear of fatness” and desire to be thin in order to appear normal in our society can cause anorexia nervosa, where a person purposely starves themselves, losing considerable weight. This is known as visual and behavioral deviation. Bulimic people binge eat and then force themselves to vomit. They usually don’t lose an alarming amount of
Michael Pollan and David Freedman are two reputable authors who have written about different types of food and why they are healthy or why they are damaging to our health. Michael Pollan wrote “Escape from the Western Diet” and David Freedman wrote “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”. Imagine Pollan’s idea of a perfect world. Everything is organic. McDonald’s is serving spinach smoothies and Walmart is supplying consumers with raw milk. The vast majority of food in this world consists of plants grown locally, because almost everyone is a farmer in order to keep up with supply and demand. How much does all this cost? What happened to all the food that is loved just because it tastes good?
Asking people to eat less, he says, is like asking them to breathe less. It sounds reasonable, so long as you don’t expect them to keep it up for long. In the New York times article, Diet that ignores hunger by Gary Taubes, published on Aug.29,2015. He reviews and questions, the attempt carried out by the nutritionist to reduce obesity and overweight. Much of obesity research of the past century has focused on elucidating behavioral techniques that could induce the obese to eat less, tolerate hunger better, and so, by this logic, lose weight. The obesity epidemic suggests it has failed. He also questioned the validity of the research, when he stated in the article “is the experience of six days relevant to what
Throughout the past years and more here recently obesity has become a fast growing problem in the United States and around the world. Since this has become such a problem certain authors are starting to take a stand in how they think the solution should be fixed. The solutions are discussed in the following articles: How Junk Food Can End Obesity by David H. Freedman and What You Eat Is Your Business by Radley Balko. Both articles have clear and distinct arguments, but the argument by Balko entices his readers and has a clear purpose and tone that allowed his article to be more effective.
Out of all mental illnesses found throughout the world, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate. Anorexia nervosa is one of the more common eating disorders found in society, along with bulimia nervosa. Despite having many definitions, anorexia nervosa is simply defined as the refusal to maintain a normal body weight (Michel, 2003). Anorexia nervosa is derived from two Latin words meaning “nervous inability to eat” (Frey, 2002). Although anorexics, those suffering from anorexia, have this “nervous inability to eat,” it does not mean that they do not have an appetite—anorexics literally starve themselves. They feel that they cannot trust or believe their perceptions of hunger and satiation (Abraham, 2008). Anorexics lose at least 15 percent of normal weight for height (Michel, 2003). This amount of weight loss is significant enough to cause malnutrition with impairment of normal bodily functions and rational thinking (Lucas, 2004). Anorexics have an unrealistic view of their bodies—they believe that they are overweight, even if the mirror and friends or family say otherwise. They often weigh themselves because they possess an irrational fear of gaining weight or becoming obese (Abraham, 2008). Many anorexics derive their own self-esteem and self-worth from body weight, size, and shape (“Body Image and Disordered Eating,” 2000). Obsession with becoming increasingly thinner and limiting food intake compromises the health of individuals suffering from anorexia. No matter the amount of weight they lose or how much their health is in jeopardy, anorexics will never be satisfied with their body and will continue to lose more weight.
Eating has taken its toll on people who live in the United States. One of the largest problems that people have is deciding how much to eat and what is healthy to eat. It was determined in the 1930s-1940s that the brain has a tremendous impact in controlling our eating habits. The main part of the brain, which controls this, is the hypothalamus. Basically, the hypothalamus measures different levels through out the body, especially in the stomach, to determine if our body needs food, which causes the sensation of hunger.
Some of the take away points that I got from Body Story: Spreading Menace was that the brain is the formidable opponent due to it programmed years of habit because its send cue to set off a chain reaction of signals the trigger and rolling sensation of hunger and how the brain calculate how full the food going to be.
Today, it is no secret that America is overweight. Although we still remain the land of the free, we are looked at by the rest of the world as “the fat country”. This is a label that we are not proud of and each day more and more people are becoming aware of the new epidemic called Obesity. In the article “Childhood Obesity in New York City Elementary School Students”, the author Lorna E. Thorpe discusses the numbers and statistics of how many kids are really overweight. “ Findings from the most recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey indicate that in 1999-2000, the prevalence of obesity among children aged six through eleven years was 15 percent” (Thorpe et al. 2004). Previous surveys show that in 1960 the obesity rate was five percent, and in eleven percent in 1988-1994. From looking at the information in the surveys you can easily see that the obesity rates are climbing rapidly. With obesity, come many dangerous side effects, both short term and long term. Short term side effects of obesity are “adverse effects on growth, blood pressure, blood lipids, and glucose metabolism” (Thorpe et al. 2004). Long term effects consist of “greater risk of hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, gall bladder disease, and osteoarthritis” (Thorpe et al. 2004). Along with physical effects of obesity, a child will also experience many physiological effects also. “Negative self-image, decreased self-esteem, eating disorders, and lower health-related quality of life” (Thorpe et al. 2004) are all examples of the physiological side effects. These can have a severe impact on a child’s outlook on life as he or she gets older. Although these side effects are prevalent to childhood obesity, no child should have to go through the...
Abraham and Mira warnes in 1988 that health educators and health professionals should weigh up carefully the benefits of weight loss against the risks of inducing psychological disturbances such as eating disorders and adverse physiological side effects such as dieting and severe weight loss…(37)(ajn).
The set-point and positive-incentive are two theories of hunger and eating. The set-point theory is a view of hunger where people assume that hunger is the result of an energy deficit in their bodies and eating is a way to fix the energy deficit (Pinel, 2014). The set point theory seems to be the most believed theory of hunger, although evidence does not support that the theory is correct. The set-point theory believes that we have an internal control that has a set-point where our body tells us that we need to eat or we need to stop eating (Pinel, 2014). According to Pinel (2014), the set-point works in a similar manner as a thermostat does in a heating or cooling system, where the system hits a specific temperature and then shuts down until
Food addiction and obesity Addictive drugs like nicotine, cocaine and heroin, all can rewire the brain to crave the satisfaction that these agents produce. The desire becomes so strong that it starts to take over the body and it no longer becomes for pleasure and it becomes a need for your body. Now likewise, some people argue that some foods have the same power and effects on people that drugs do, where some of these foods can alter the brain in a way that resets the appetite and satisfaction threshold in a way that it’s out of reach, meaning a person can never have enough. Obesity levels these days are semi-dangerous, so some doctors have conducted an experiment that tested the effects of some foods on the brain, where they took 12 obese men after they consumed two milkshakes, with the same amount of calories, protein, fat and carbohydrates, and they were equally sweet. (Sifferlin 2013)
Restrictive doesn’t work! It’s like my dad telling me to quit seeing an older guy so what do I do……. You got it! I sneak around and did it anyway! There is something about telling ourselves that we can’t have something!
With a fuller and clearer picture of the bodily systems, and how they respond to food, we see that overeating and obesity is not only about self-control; it has turned into a complex physiological problem. There is a cycle: a cue triggers a dopamine fueled urge. The dopamine then leads us to eat more food. Eating food leads to the release of opioid, and the production of dopamine and opioids both stimulate further eating. “Cues ensure that we will work hard to obtain the reward” (Kessler, 2009, p.54 ), but the desire for reward is causing overeating and obesity problems.
According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the main cause of anorexia nervosa is still unknown. The person’s hypothalamus in the brain improperly works. Often psychological, environmental, physiological factors develop the disorder in a person. Anorexia is most commonly diagnosed in white women who are high achievers and have a goal oriented family (Anorexia Nervosa). Psychologists theorize that the patients’ desire to control their own life manifests itself in the realm of eatingthe only area, in the patients mind, where she has...