Avoiding Deadly Weight Loss Programmes

Avoiding Deadly Weight Loss Programmes

Obesity is one of the challenges that women battle with in the contemporary world. Women usually like to look good and trendy, while still maintaining their normal lifestyles. Our poor eating habits and lack of regular exercises constitute hindrances to achieving our ideal weight most of the time. The kind of foods that we consume in this part of the world, mostly carbohydrates, fast or junk foods made from flour products contribute a lot to weight gain or obesity. And this leads to various health conditions such as high blood pressure or hypertension, back pain, shortness of breath, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes and cancer. These health conditions can result in premature death if not properly managed.

As a result of the seriousness of these medical conditions and the general desire of today’s woman to look good and fashionable, many women are adopting various measures to shed the excess weight that their bodies put on from time to time. Aside from weight loss surgeries which remove excess fat from the body, many have embraced different weight loss programmes which prescribe various diets for them. Some of these programmes involve aerobic exercise which women undertake by registering in gymnasiums or purchasing aerobic video cassettes, CDs or VCDs to guide them in engaging in aerobics in their homes. The success rates of these weight loss programmes vary depending on the nature and commitment of the overweight person to a particular programme. Some women take different kinds of herbs or slimming teas, as well as slimming pills, most of which have one side effect or the other.

Aerobics is very effective when one is dedicated to it. But many people expect results too soon after the commencement of the programme, and chances are that they get bored and quit the effort. They forget that the excess weight was not acquired in one day, so, it cannot be shed instantly. Some people who endure the programme till they achieve the desired results also make the mistake of stopping thereafter. Then, they end up gaining back all the weight they lost and even more. On the whole, most of the weight loss programmes including the various diets are not very effective, and women are getting more and more desperate about watching their weight and getting rid of their excess weight.

This desperation caused by the low success rate of diet programmes and the rigours or inconveniences of regular exercises have forced some women to embark on starving as a fast and result-oriented solution to their weight problems. They may not eat more than once daily to prevent the fats from piling up. But while this is a short-cut to achieving one’s ideal weight, it should not be encouraged for its health risks. To start with, starving can cause peptic ulcer and when that happens, the patient will have to be eating regularly which is what she was trying to avoid in the first place. An ulcer patient has no choice but to eat always and whoever is prone to weight gain will end up worse than she would have been without the health condition.

I once watched a woman on the popular Oprah Winfery TV show who took some slimming pills and ended up with bulimia. Bulimia is an emotional disorder in which the sufferer has an insatiable appetite which makes him or her eat too much uncontrollably. The woman’s husband had repeatedly complained about her being overweight, and in a desperate bid to save her marriage, she went for a weight loss programme where she was given some pills to take. Unfortunately, complications set in and she began to have a craving for food always uncontrollably. At the end of the day, her weight just ballooned and the worst part of the story is that her husband whom she was trying to please left her when she had that disorder. He couldn’t stand her bulimic condition and put an end to that marriage. Narrating her ordeal in tears, she advised overweight women contemplating weight loss programmes to do it only because they want to and not because someone wants them to. She was heartbroken because she took those pills only to please her husband who ended up leaving her when her effort to please him led to complications.

Amazingly, young girls also nurse the desire to look fit and trim these days, and it is a good development considering the health benefits. But some of them take it too far when they decide to start wearing girdles or dieting over a little, almost unnoticeable bulging of the stomach which they can easily eliminate through exercise.

I personally have had to stop my 17-year-old daughter from wearing a new undersized girdle that I bought for myself recently. She had taken it from my wardrobe and was using it without my knowledge since I couldn’t use it because of the size and I decided not to return it because it was the biggest they had in the shop and it was unlikely they would want to return my money. Besides, I didn’t have time to go back to the shop early enough to explore the possibility of exchanging it with some other item. So, I just dumped it in my wardrobe. I was shocked to discover that a girl of her age was wearing a girdle over what was really nothing. I didn’t wear girdles until I started having children.

That incident was what made me realise how conscious women are about their shapes and looks, regardless of their age. I told her she didn’t need it and let her know the side effect of girdles which I’ve both observed and heard some other women complain about. It has the tendency to keep you hooked to it for life, for when you stop wearing it, the tummy bloats even more than before. The only way out when you stop wearing girdles is to do tummy exercises continuously to have a flat tummy on a permanent basis.

Last week, I read a pathetic story of a teenage girl who died as a result of dieting in Wimbledon, South-West London. 15-year-old Anna Wood had joined her mother on a post-Christmas diet in January 2009. After about six weeks, her mother stopped dieting but she carried on reducing her food intake. By the time she returned to her Wimbledon High School, she began hiding her food and throwing it away when no one was looking. She started to emaciate and when her teachers discovered her dieting, they contacted her mother, who first thought they were over-reacting. But few months later, it was clear to her that her daughter needed help, and she took her to seek medical attention, in addition to booking appointment with a psychologist for regular meetings with Anna. By that time, precisely May last year, anorexia (a disease that causes loss of appetite) had set in, and nothing anyone said could get her to eat.

And Anna was so brilliant that she made straight As in all her GCSE papers. She actually had 10 A pluses and one A! Anna, who had an ambition to become an architect, could not continue her studies until the next academic year because of her ill-health. So, she took up a part-time job three miles from their home. Even though her mother packed lunch for her, no one knew that she was not eating it. She trekked six miles to and from work daily without food in her stomach.

On February 11, this year, she collapsed on her way to work and was rushed to the hospital. Tests were conducted and it was discovered that she had perforated ulcer. Doctors said she had to have a surgery, and it wasn’t clear if she would survive it. Though Anna survived the operation, her body was too weak to heal itself. Her major organs began to fail, leaving her to suffer brain damage, paralysis, a collapsed lung, and inability to breathe without a ventilator. On March 26, she died of a heart attack at the age of 16.

Anna Wood’s diet consisted of coffee and water for breakfast, carrots, apple and celery for lunch and a real meal for dinner, meaning dinner was the only real meal she allowed herself. And as her weight dropped, she replaced the scanty vegetable lunch with water. Her parents found out only after she was admitted to hospital when they read her diary in which she had recorded the deadly diet.

Her mother, Mrs. Gibson, who is divorced from Anna’s father, said Anna didn’t really need the diet that eventually killed her. She recalled that it was an insignificant weight gain that her daughter was trying to lose, something that would have disappeared naturally. The young lady wasted her promising life for watching her weight.

Her parents want other parents to hear their story so they might realise the dangers of eating disorders before it is too late. Her structural engineer father, Paul Wood said “Until Anna was admitted to hospital, we had no idea how bad it was. I just wish there was more help out there for parents trying to deal with a child with the disease. We just felt so helpless”.

Looking at her photograph, Anna was just okay. She wasn’t in any way an overweight kid. And that’s why her mother ought not to have allowed her to join her on the diet. She should have instructed her to exercise instead. Children need to be counselled and told to do the right thing. They have ideas that are not only wrong but also dangerous sometimes, and it is the duty of the parents to guide them and see that they do the right things. We shouldn’t indulge them by allowing them to have their way when that is a bad idea. They are not as wise and experienced as adults are, so, they need parental guidance to ensure that they do not make costly mistakes that both they and their parents will regret for life.

Weight loss programmes should be undertaken only when they are necessary, and not all such regimes should be embraced. The side effects should be considered before jumping at them so that one does not end up with regrets and disasters. It is good to watch one’s weight, but that should be done the healthy way. The healthiest and most result-oriented weight loss programme is the one that involves eating a balanced diet rich in protein, fruits and vegetables, with essential vitamins and minerals, combined with regular exercise. Any shortcut to achieving an ideal weight can lead to serious complications which may result in loss of life.

By Nike Oluwole

(First published on October 7, 2010)