Younger Generation Obsessed with Dieting

According to statistics, 51% of 9 and 10 year-old girls feel better about themselves if they are on a diet, 46% of 9-11 year-olds are ‘sometimes’ or ‘very often’ on diets, and 82% of their families are ‘sometimes’ or ‘very often’ on diets. In addition, more than half of teenaged girls are, or think they should be, on diets. About three percent of these teens go too far, then becoming anorexic or bulimic. Dieting can come about because of the want to be skinny, and many choose to avoid food or skip meals. Nowadays, we notice the rise in numbers of people, especially young adults, who take the desire to be thin too extremely. People often see dieting as an ideal way to lose weight because the media makes it seem like an easy and effective idea. We read everywhere on the Internet the diets celebrities take up – some go on a strict water diet, some live on coffee, while some even choose to fast. Soon enough, people begin to think to themselves, ‘Why not? If they can do it and achieve their ideal body weight, I can do the same’. Some think of dieting as a better way to lose weight because even successful and famous people do it. Another reason why people choose to go on diets is because they see it as a cheaper alternative to lose weight. If a person doesn’t need to eat, he or she doesn’t need to spend that much money right? Exercise would require one to head to the gym or spend money on sportswear while surgery would cost too much. In a world we live in where the prices of things seem to be rising each day, we choose to go on diets because they seem to be the ‘affordable’ way to lose weight. However, we need to take note that dieting can sometimes be ineffective. This is because it can affect us in certain ways – some physically, and...

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...frenzied way and may be characterised with certain actions that are similar to eating disorders, like avoiding meals or vomiting as a way of losing calories. Anorexia nervosa is a disorder in which a person starves in order to stay thin. Some people, especially young adults, can take dieting to the extreme and start to deprive themselves of food in order to gain their ‘ideal’ weight quickly. This is where dieting develops to become an obsession; one constantly feels overweight and will always keep check of their weight, thinking of it as a large number. When an individual skips one too many meals, this will begin to become an issue. People need to realise that it is possible to develop this disorder over time; that it doesn’t just occur to someone. Hence, when one gets too obsessed with dieting, he or she can be more prone to becoming a ‘victim’ of eating disorders.