OpEd- Why People Shouldn’t Go on Diets
By: Aidan Rodriguez
Over the past hundred-or-so years, a new trend has emerged in society- diets. Now, there are several different options and varieties of diets to choose from, but the general idea of all diets are the same. The overarching goal of it all is to lose weight. However, people’s weight, historically, has never been an issue until recently. So, what changed? I won’t bore you with all of the details, but, to summarize, after WWII, the processed foods industry grew tremendously. This growth led to a majority of American homes containing and relying upon processed foods instead of home-cooked meals. While this was more convenient for the working family, it also created a standard in the nation for less healthy diets. In combination with less active lifestyles, this inadvertently contributed to a growing obesity rate and increasing health issues in the nation.
While these diets paved the way for our nation’s weight problem, societal norms are what forced action and change. The traditional form of beauty, especially for women, includes a thin figure, and when people find themselves outside of that “norm,” they tend to receive pressure to conform. This pressure arrived in the form of diets. The word “diet” can encompass a multitude of things. However, to make this easier, I will give a general definition. To diet is to cause to eat and drink sparingly or according to prescribed rules. This seems easy enough, but if it’s so easy, why does everyone struggle to stay on a diet? For some people, dieting makes them unwell. Others feel as if they are starving themselves on diets. Simply put, diets tend to create unpleasant changes in our lives.
Diets are supposed to help us feel better and lose weight, but they tend to have the opposite effect on most people. People find it difficult to keep the weight off after their diet is finished. Even to the extent that contestants on weight loss shows, like The Biggest Loser, regain almost all the weight they lost after leaving the show. This reveals an inherent issue in dieting. Dieting was created as a temporary solution for a life-long struggle. People rarely go into diets planning on eating like that for the rest of their lives. Diets themselves even tend to be extreme in order to create faster results. Overall, diets are not a sustainable way to lose weight and keep it off as it has always been advertised.
Another popular way to lose weight is by working out. Everyone has heard about working out, but it can be intimidating. Working out is something that each individual has to find what they are comfortable with doing, so there is no easy answer for what to do. However, there are some key things that are important for everyone trying to lose weight that way. If you don’t eat healthy foods, it will be almost impossible to lose weight. A great benefit of working out, though, is it can help with mental focus and other issues. Biker, Adam Leibovitz, was able to manage his ADHD through his sport. Notable swimmer, Michael Phelps, used swimming to manage his ADHD. There are also studies that show sports can help reduce depression. Exercise is actually a key aspect of living a happy and healthy life.
Many people held the mindset that they needed to be skinny and used dieting and exercise to achieve that goal. However, there is another mindset that emerged in the 1960s that has begun to gain popularity. Today, we are all pretty familiar with the phrase “body positivity,” but this term is used loosely in our day-to-day lives. Body positivity is a beautiful thing and can be empowering to many people when used in the proper way. Many people see body positivity as accepting yourself no matter what, and in a sense, that is the purpose of the movement. However, this idea can also lead to people becoming stuck in unhealthy habits. Some people, like me, are genetically predisposed to be on the “thicker” side even when eating healthy and working out. That is completely okay and people should embrace that aspect of themselves in the right way.
So, what is the right way? Should we diet and try to lose weight, should we just accept the way we look and embrace it, or do we just work out and hope for the best? Sadly, there is no simple answer to this. There is no one-size-fits-all, magical diet that you can do to look and feel better, and there is a certain point where you have to accept that something needs to change in your life. The best solution is to find what works for you. Stay away from processed foods as much as you can and eat fresh foods when you can. The most important part about this, though, is that it isn’t treated as a diet. This is a change in lifestyle.
If you want to see results that stay and make you feel better, you have to continue eating healthy, but not necessarily all the time. It’s unrealistic to say you’ll never eat cake again. The biggest issue with sticking to diets is it’s an unrealistic lifestyle. So, live realistically. There are gonna be days that you don’t want to go to the gym and that’s okay, but on those days try to eat as healthy as you can. Some days you’re going to want to eat junk food- completely fine just try to go to the gym and work it off afterward. Overall, it’s finding your own personal balance that takes care of your body and keeps it healthy.