It turns out that adults and teenagers who want to lose weight have different motives: the former want to lose weight for health reasons, while the “younger generation” loses weight to improve their appearance, increase their self-esteem, and avoid ridicule from their peers.
But should teenagers lose weight at all? We will try to figure it out in this article.
To do this, you should refer to the materials of the study, the authors of which checked how attempts to lose weight at 12-17 years old affected weight 10 years later.
It turned out that people who followed a particular diet as teenagers gained much more weight years later than those who made no effort to fight extra pounds.
The weight gain was even greater among those participants in the experiment who chose unhealthy methods to lose weight.
For example, the body mass index of overweight girls who starved themselves increased by an average of 5.9 points after 10 years.
Their peers, who had avoided strict diets in the past, gained only 0.15 points over the same period. This pattern was observed both among overweight people and among those who had no problems with excess weight.
There is only one conclusion: teenagers should not go on a diet in the usual sense of the word, that is, they should not reduce the number of calories they consume, refuse meals, drink special drinks instead of food, and especially not take medications for weight loss (with the exception of those prescribed by a doctor).
A healthy alternative would be methods that will help you avoid eating disorders and develop a healthier relationship with food and your body.
