Subscribe10 Sobering Revelations About Women and Dieting
A survey conducted on 2000 young women (average age 23) revealed that every pound of weight a woman loses will cost them about £807 (approximately $1660 USD). This includes expenditures such as; gym membership, exercise DVDs, supplements and extra fruits and veggies.
The survey also uncovered other shocking (but perhaps not terribly surprising) revelations of the dietary habits of generation next:
- They will spend up to up to £150,164 ($308,871 USD) over a lifetime on their weight-loss regimes
- Nine in 10 (90%) have gone at least a day without eating, with 30% of those going two or more days without food and 7% going more than four days without;
- A fifth (20%) have followed a pattern of having an “eat day” followed by a “non-eat day” and 47% claim to only eat one meal a day;
- More than half (53%) of those questioned said a diet to them meant eating less than 1,000 calories a day and a fifth (20%) said it was eating less than 800 calories a day;
- A third (34%) have taken slimming pills to lose weight, 30% make themselves sick and 11% have taken speed or cocaine to step up their metabolism, and,
- One in 10 women said they have lost half a stone in a week (7 lbs) and 6% claim to have lost a stone in two weeks
- The survey found women typically start such bad habits at the age of 15.
- It also uncovered how women like to start a diet around four weeks before a big event.
- Eight out of 10 women want to be a size 10 or under, with 40% thinking a size 10 is perfect.
- Around a third (30%) want to be a size eight, and 9% want to be a size six or under.
More Magazine editor Lisa Smosarski says this of the findings;
The reason young women can’t lose weight is because they equate dieting with not eating. They look at celebrities like Victoria Beckham and think the only way she could possibly achieve such a tiny frame is by not eating. As a result, whole generations of women have a dysfunctional eating pattern of endless mini starvation diets.
From a cost perspective, I think expenditures allotted towards improving health and fitness such as; gym memberships, exercise videos and extra veggies and fruits are great investments (provided people put them to use, that is).
I wonder though...
- Is this an accurate commentary on the mind-frames of gen-Y as a whole?
- Is this simply the generation that thinks this way or women in general?
- How much do you think the average male spends per shed pound?
- How much would the average male spend to gain each pound?
More like this in Body Image · Nov 27, 2007
Seems kinda accurate to me.
ReplyI certainly have gone 3 days without eating (high school) and while I had an eating disorder it didn't stand out too much because many of my friends did the same thing. (Class of 2003)
i'm 23 years old and i have certain anorexic tendancies, never ever a smart idea. however, its not just me, and its a bad thing because most girls my age have a liquid diet consisting of capt. morgan and peach shnapps, also not a smart idea. with the constant pressure to be thin and sophisticated at the same time... unfortunately, my generation is killing themselves- as for the cost of a man to shed a pound, i think it would be less thanfor a woman because it seems that men have less difficutly
Replythe cost to lose weight still sounds less than the costs of being overweight. also, that's not an american size ten, right? i don't think many women would consider that a "perfect" weight.
ReplyIn all honesty, there is no extra cost for eating vegetables and fruit because your replacing your unhealthy items (soda, chips, ice cream, etc) with healthy items (hopefully). That's what I've done and it really has not hurt my budget in the least. A couple weeks ago I did some holiday grocery shopping and found that two bags of chips (on sale) = 6 large bananas + 5 large apples. I'll take the fruit please.
There is a biennial survey on youth in the U.S. that looks at dietary behaviors of high school students (called the Youth Risk Behavior Survey). In 2005, girls were more likely than boys to have gone without eating for 24 hours or more to lose weight or to keep from gaining weight in the past 30 days (17.0% vs. 7.6%). Girls were also more likely to take diet pills, powders, or liquids without a doctor's advice (8.1% vs. 4.6%) and to vomit or take laxatives (6.2% vs. 2.8%). It definitely is not a generation problem.
I am hopeful though because girls are more likely than boys to try to lose or maintain their weight through diet and exercise as well. So hopefully there is some type of transition occurring.
ReplyMy own observation is that women are NOT equating dieting with not eating. They are equating it with eating excessive amounts of empty carbohydrates, because they think fat-free is a good thing, and a license to eat as much as they want of these foods.
ReplyThe calorie counts are really frightening. In undergrad (B.S. in Nutrition) we learned that 1200 is the minimum... EVER. Surviving on 800 calories per day is tough and dangerous.
ReplyMy friends and I did all those things (fasting, barfing, diet pills) when I was in junior high and high school (age 13-18) in the mid 80s, so I don't think it's a generational thing. When we did eat it was stuff like fruit, yogurt or milk, no starches or meat.
Men probably spend at least as much if not more to gain weight as women do to lose it. They spend it on gym memberships, magazines, weight training ebooks, protein powders, home gym equipment, and supplements. Overfat men probably don't need to spend much to lose fat because they tend to lose it a lot faster using methods that are a lot less nutty than women do.
ReplyI used to do extreme dieting and sure enough, I would always put on weight again eventually. More recently, I've changed my habits: I've almost eradicated sugar from my diet, I eat smaller portions, and I exercise more intensely and more often. That's what I think is missing from the mindset of most people, but unfortunately, we live in societies where "quick-fix" solutions are encouraged.
ReplyI don't believe most think size 10 is perfect.
ReplyI didn't read the survey, but a question that I would add to your list: I wonder if they considered the influence of marketing on these women?
Every time I see an ad for any type of fitness/diet product, the pitch person is almost always a woman (ie: Jenny Craig with Kirstie Alley and Valerie Bertenelli). Women are constantly bombarded with the message that they have to be thinner - regardless of their current size. I don't read much mens stuff (the only men's magazines we have around here are fishing and hunting mags), but I rarely see stuff in there saying that men have to lose weight. And I almost *never* see men on diet pitches on TV (except for Jared). When you are bombarded day in and day out, 24/7/365, you start to believe the hype, and change your behavior, regardless of how destructive those changes may be.
ReplyWell you could also make the reverse argument...every pound gained increases medical expenses, shortens lifetime working period, reduces income by limiting career opportunities etc.
ReplyThat part probably comes down to the belief in Western culture that men should be larger than women, thus being the reason why it's common to see portrayals of couples with a stick-thin wife and an overweight husband. Neither is healthy. It probably would be interesting to see how much money men would put into gaining weight in protein shakes, gym memberships, and trips to hospitals from being so desperate to benchpress another fifty pounds. *sarcasm*
Replystarving yourself is the quickest way to gain weight. unless of course you plan on never eating a bite ever again in your life. that's why starvation diets don't work, and the people who utilize them often end up being fatter than they were before they started. bad idea.
ReplyI think a lot of women do things such as starving and purging due to lack of education. I wish someone had explained to me nutrition when I was in high school... they simply do not teach these things early enough, so girls don't understand that they can get better results by simply switching out unhealthy foods for healthy ones rather than starving themselves and eventually messing up their metabolism, making weight loss even harder in the future.
Replyhmm, none of this comes as a surprise to me...i certainly have spent a boatload of money on health/fitness/weight loss. the money spent on health foods and gym memberships and fitness classes and running shoes and fitness clothes, i think was money well spent. but that spent on garbage like diet foods, diet pills etc., was such a waste. luckily the former outnumbers the latter.
i think an american size 6 is perfect. i don't know how that equates in the UK.
i have gone days without eating, thrown up, taken diet pills, done all kinds of insane and extreme diets. often for me dieting was keeping calories under 1000 per day.
but now, i'm making an effort to get in shape and be healthy, eating lots of fruit and veg, no processed junk, lots of exercise, no counting calories, and of course i feel much better and am still losing weight. but still, it's hard to rid myself of this obsessive and almost competitive mindset and fear of gaining weight.
Replyit seems some people think the clothing size is by american standards, which it is not. the use of "stones" instead of pounds is pretty much a give away that this article isn't american, it's british. a UK size 10 is equivalent to about US size 6. as it goes, with vanity sizing a size 10 (uk or otherwise) really isn't what it was say 3-5 years ago. women who wore a size bigger than a 10 years ago are now able to fit into it.
people have this warped perception of how clothing size is linked to weight. i'd rather be a toned & in shape UK size 12 than a flabby "perfect" 10...which surprise, surprise i currently am. lol.
furthermore, i'm not surprised by any of the statistics here. i think a lot of it is due to lack of education regarding dieting, fitness and nutrition. at age 16, i was eating 1,000 cals because i thought there was no problem in doing so. i wasn't starving so why eat more, right? i did not know back then that it slows down your metabolism & can lead to muscle loss. not before long, i was wrapped up in an eating disorder...it was easier to be "educated" that thin was best (through internet, mainstream media, school, friends etc) instead of getting bombarded with a constant stream of valuable info on nutrition and being healthy. this doesn't seem to exist right now. there are magazine articles every week on X celebrity going on X diet and how they dropped a ton of weight in a short amount of time; the latest fast, how to lose weight without exercising etc. i can spot which diets are healthy and which are not but i know some people can't and will follow them thinking they're doing fine.
i doubt some of these women even have the personality/background characteristics that most people with eating disorders tend to have before they even get ill (e.g - troubled childhood, traumatic events etc). imo, some people are have more "predisposition" to get problems with disordered eating than others. this is just my own personal viewpoint though. yet due to not knowing better, some women expose themselves to the "practices" people with disordered eating often engage in without knowing it(e.g - restricting, skipping meals). we are told missing meals is normal, rushed weight-loss is fine, one must eat less (and people take this too far) in order to lose weight etc so it doesn't occur to some that these tactics aren't ok. we don't associate them with having a problem with food because we're not sticking fingers down our throat or chewing & spitting etc.
ReplyAh, this list takes me back to high school. But after college, I ditched the crash diets for good. Not eating is NOT a good way to lose weight!
ReplyI don't believe that fruits and vegetables are an extra expense.
ReplyWe should all be eating more fruits and veggies (except for you vegans who are probably getting enough), but for a lot of people who are truly eating crap like fast foods and processed foods all the time, the cost of fresh produce can increase their grocery bills. This is particularly true if you are on a diet that asks for organic products which you may only be able to find at the fancy organic markets, or if you are purchasing products that you don't eat as often, or are less familiar with. This leads to strange purchasing and utilization patterns which will increase cost per serving. For it to come out as a wash, with good replacing bad, requires a pretty tight equilibrium.
If you just throw up the equation "replace chips and soda with bananas and apples", then you may come out even. But try that with blueberries and pomegranates and you get a different story.
ReplyHonestly, for me, I have found that the thing that has made me the most self confident and comfortable in my own body is working out. In the past, I've had an unhealthy relationship with food, and it honestly became too large a part of my life. Now, I've noticed that when I work out regularly, I feel more emotionally grounded and confident than I would with any amount of food restriction. It's hard for me to read this article, because I know how easy it is to slip into that mentality, and how hard it is to get out of it and be happy. It's not worth it! Really.
ReplyBananas and apples are AWESOME. they are relatively cheap, nutritious, and very portable. they are the fruit staples of my diet, and along with bell peppers, eggplants, broccoli, butternut squash, and brussels sprouts, they provide sufficient nutrients. i've also quit eating out almost altogether (with the exception of special occasions with friends and family). i've actually saved money versus even eating fast food once or twice a week. the real downside is that all my meals have to be planned and prepared, and it's really time-consuming. but i think it's worth it. i save calories AND money...what can be better?
ReplyIt really is scary that we have become so obsessed with being the perfect 10 that we make ourselves sick. Obesity is a problem but it should be because of the health risks involved not just the way we look.
ReplyIts not healthy to diet like this because body needs food and other nutrients..rather they should excercise.Spending so much money on this activity is a wastage.Finally it all depends on the structure of a person. Sometimes even if u eat less you put on weight and sometimes people who eat more end up with the same weight.Proper eating habits and excercise is the solution to all problems.
ReplyMy SO's grocery bill went up dramatically when I took over the shopping and made it healthy.
People work on very specific equations.. when, no that's not so much how it works.
My little brother, for example, lives on raman noodles and those $0.50 frozen pizzas -- him trying to eat healthfully increased the cost dramatically.
Processed foods, esp if you are going generic brand, are CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP. I could see it in people checking out when I worked in a grocery store. Those with junk pretty much always had a cheaper bill than those coming up with fruits and veggies.
I think spending more is worth it, and will even in the long run-- but some don't even realize how important good nutrition is.
ReplyWhen I was growing up, my mom was always going on diets and she told me something very interesting: She was very good at fasting because she didn't have to control herself around food. It was like she could "quit" food for a while and that's why she did pretty good on diets that involved only drinking liquid shakes. In high school, I experimented with some of these dangerous behaviors. I sometimes went a whole day without eating anything but a SlimFast shake. I never tried anything like speed or anything, but my sister had a LOT of friends try to buy her ADD medicine from her in high school (it was an amphetamine) because it was an appetite suppressant.
Replyhonestly, I'm obsessed with my weight...only I rarely do anything about it! When I was 15 I was able to get down to a stick size...went back up to a womenly size at 19, and then around 20 I went wayy Ana and went from 136 down to 109...LAME. I miss being that weight only STEWPID ME...I can't live on oatmeal and steamed veggies anymore. I go everyday wanting to hit myself, and scratch myself, and seeing this annoying skinny girls (like I use to be) and they have no problem. Every FREAKING DAY is a struggle because I 7/10 times I over eat. I hate it. Sometimes I really wish that I'd just die, but I'm afraid of commiting suicide because I don't want to go to Hell...I know that sounds Childish. I don't want to feel this way about myself...I'm not fat...I'm really not. But I just don't understand that everyday I wake up and tell myself that I am...I cry, I punch myself, I HATE BEING THIS WAY...counseling wouldn't help...I'm just a lame selfish brat who should be grateful for what she has...but am I? I'm not displaying what it means to be a good person. I feel that my mind is over taken. HOW can this all be just over food? Why has it because my drug? My rebelion of choice? What in the HECK is wrong with me? I act like my world is ending when all I do is just over eat every now and again? WHY.
ReplyI used to be that way. One day i ate 40 calories of jell-o and walked two miles... I would measure my food so I would no the exact number of calories. Eating less than 200 calories and resisting the hunger pains made me feel better about myself. I don't think I ever would have fasted for a day, though, as I was fascinated by the measuring and counting. I'm on medication now, so i don't do that anymore. Also, anti-depressants keep my weight down. You may want to try them.
ReplyUK 10 = US 6
ReplyI'm a UK 12, but have some US size 6 A-line skirts, but then on both sides of the Atlantic sizing seems to vary from shop to shop.
I think it should be illegal for advertising to be used against children, I think in the next 20 years we will see a generations of young men who will bemuch more obsessed with their weight. My husband decided he wanted to lose weight (he is very motivated) in the summer and cut out just junkfood, pop, and limited his carbs after 8 pm, he started running 3 times a week and afterwards did situps pushups pullups and squats and curls and dropped 25 pounds like water, very depressing since i'm pregnant and am constantly expanding but it was amazing to see how when you give yourself 3 hours a week of really working out and eat sensibly how easy it can be. they need to be much more aggressive with teching kids about nutrition and they need to teach them real fitness as well.
ReplyThey say that if u starve your self you wont lose weight and its unhealthy.But what if your 13 and dont like fruits or vegatables(i have had some of everything almost)And i am really busy and my mom works late so she wont let me go outsife.So what can i do to lose weight? If you have anything that i can do put a comment for me to read so i can lose some weight becuase i weigh 199 lbs in american pounds.PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyBrittney (above poster) maybe u should talk about ur concerns for ur health with ur mother? explain its health, rather than a desire to look like an emaciated celebrity that u want to pursue. she should listen to u. u can exercise inside, with say an aerobics dvd or similar. a mini rebounder (trampoline) costs around £30, id guess $40? its really effective exercise, shouldnt be uncomfortable because its no impact, and u can do it infront of the tv! :) bonus. its actually recommended to NASA astronauts which i think tells u something.
otherwise, talk to ur gym teacher at school about clubs or classes u could join. Be honest about ur concerns, and if they're worth the wages they're paid they'll listen to u.
look into nutrition and cooking: vegetables need to be cooked a certain way to taste good - usually steamed - but trust me wen they are cooked correctly they are delicious.
please please please do not resort to the behaviours described above. they are the behaviours of somebody with an eating disorder. A mental illness. They will not make u happy or healthy (which im assuming u associate with thinness) they will only make u depressed, ashamed and insecure. I should know (spent all of my teens with various kinds of eds. )
Reply1.Decrease bread and artificial snacks as much as possible. Particularly simple carbohydrate. Eat sweet potato, brown rice...
2.Its very important that you increase your protein intake. Eat healthy protein like egg, pulses etc. Don't turn to eating fatty proteins because of cholesterol. 3.Protein however will keep you fuller for longer on less.
4.Eat small meal frequently.
5.COMPLETELY AVOID STARVING YOURSELF. It REALLY backfires.
6. Start resistance exercises. Focus on lighter weights more repetitions. When your bored instead of eating unhealthy exercise. When your focusing too much on food exercise and drink water.
I'm 5'8" and 128 pounds with 38-25-37 measurements.
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