Weight-loss diets for young people often counter-productive

There was an interesting but too-brief article at salon.com a few days ago about how highly restrictive diets for young people often backfire. I really liked this nutritionist, Joanne Ikeda, who was quoted.

From the salon.com story:

"Ikeda began the session by explaining that she joined the fat acceptance movement "mainly because I was tired of lying to people that weight loss was a realistic goal." After working for years with fat girls who were trying to lose weight, Ikeda concluded that the children hadn't kept the weight off or improved their health, and their self-esteem had suffered terribly. From that point on, she decided that following the edict to "first do no harm" meant taking the focus off weight in kids and putting it on overall health.

"So Ikeda, who in addition to teaching nutrition at UC-Berkeley is a consultant to the HMO Kaiser-Permanente, promotes the idea of "health at any size." That's the notion that a fat person can be metabolically fit -- with healthy blood pressure and levels of glucose, insulin and lipids -- while still having a body-mass index indicating that they are overweight or obese."

Here's a link to an article about the study mentioned in the paragraph above:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/06/09_fatdieting.shtml

"Joanne Ikeda, co-director of UC Berkeley's Center for Weight & Health ... said the survey results are particularly troubling, as other studies have shown that dieting during adolescence results in weight gain, not weight loss.

"There's a myth out there that calorie restriction on the whole is a positive way to lose weight," said Ikeda. "But studies have found that high school girls who said they were dieting were at greater risk for becoming obese three years later."

"Several respondents in her survey said they were not significantly overweight when they started dieting as young teens. "My concern is that there is a subsample of the population that is particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of yo-yo dieting," said Ikeda. "Many women in the study said they wished they had never started dieting in the first place."

"Ikeda cautions that her survey was not a randomized sampling of obese women in the United States and that this limits her ability to generalize the findings. In addition, there was no comparison group of women with BMIs of less than 30.

"Nevertheless, the survey provides some key insights into the dieting experiences of a significant number of obese women, said Ikeda.

"I suggest that dietitians and obese women shift their focus from weight to metabolic fitness," said Ikeda. "They should look at ways to improve blood pressure and levels of glucose, insulin and lipids rather than what the scale says."

"Ikeda admits that her anti-dieting views on weight and health put her in the minority among nutrition and health professionals. "If people have already seriously tried to lose weight three times and regained that weight back all three times, I'd say stop dieting and live with the weight they've got," said Ikeda. "At some point, you've got to say, 'This is not working for me.' You need to find an alternative. Adopt a healthy lifestyle, and let the weight stabilize."

...

The survey was co-sponsored by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.

*italics are mine. I'm pointing out that she has her biases and the people funding the study have their biases. I still found it interesting, if not definitive.

Proposed yoga routine (beginner level)

Hey, dionysus1999

Do you think this seems like a balanced routine easily accessible to a beginner?

Warm-up
6-10 Shoulder rolls
Squat and windmill arms (15-20 seconds)

Main
2 Reed pose (extension)
2 Tree pose (extension, one-foot weight-bearing)
2 Downward dog (inversion)

Floor work
2-3 Boat (abs, balance)
1 Chiropractic twist (twist)

Cool-down
Hug knees & rock (30-45 seconds)
Corpse pose & meditation (1-5 minutes)