Dieting Can Lead To Eating Disorders

10/20/2006

Our culture is diet obsessed. Eighty percent of U.S. women are dissatisfied with their appearance and 89 percent want to lose weight. As a nation, we spend more than $50 billion on diet products each year.

Fifty percent of women are on a diet and 10 percent of dieters progress to partial or full eating disorders. How can we determine when a diet has gone too far? Remuda Ranch Programs for Eating Disorders, the nation's leading and largest inpatient treatment center for women and girls with anorexia and bulimia, offers advice on when to get help.

"A diet has gone too far when the restrictive calorie level or limited foods on the diet lead to episodes of binge eating; a diet has gone too far when a person purges calories by self-induced vomiting," said Juliet Zuercher, registered dietitian and the director of nutrition services at Remuda Ranch. "If these binging and purging behaviors increase to multiple times per week, for three months or more, that's considered a full-blown eating disorder."

If dieters experience weight loss and think a little is good, but a lot would be better, they are on a slippery slope. When weight reaches below 85 percent of what is normal for their body, and they are obsessed with their body image and exercise, and, if women, they miss three menstrual cycles in a row, that's a clear warning sign that an eating disorder is present. Even lesser combinations of these symptoms can mean an eating disorder.

"The key is not to diet. Instead, listen to your body, eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full," adds Zuercher. "We don't believe in putting labels on food. All food is fine when you keep in mind balance, moderation and variety."

Balance means that most of the time you eat because you're hungry and use food as fuel for your body. It also means that sometimes you eat when the food appeals to you or when it's appropriate in a social setting. There are both physiological and psychological factors in our food choices. With balance both factors are honored.

It's important to choose foods from a variety of sources. The USDA MyPyramid provides a structure for determining the number of servings from each food group that will provide the best variety. Eat different foods every day.