College Girls and Diets

Diets and Young Women

It seems that women today are exceptionally obsessed with their bodies and how they look. Our culture admires the ultra-thin while ostracizing and ridiculing the overweight and obese. The overweight are seen as weak and even lazy, while those who are thin are seen as strong and energized. The media continually shows thin people enjoying and participating in life - it is as if fat people do not exist, and yet, our nation is the most overweight and unhealthy it has ever been. The media leads the obsession with dieting that haunts young American women today, and it has created a subculture of diets, exercise, eating disorders, and impossible goals when it comes to the "ideal" weight perceived by millions of girls and young women.

Almost everyone knows that the best way to lose weight and maintain it is to combine a healthy lifestyle of exercise with a balanced diet high in nutrition, low in calories, and fat. However, millions of people desperate to lose weight will try any fad diet that comes along. Usually these diets are so restrictive that they are difficult to maintain for any length of time, and so, they are abandoned after a short time, and very little, if any, weight loss is achieved. That is why so many young women fail to lose weight on diets. The normal "diet" does not fit in our rushed and frantic lifestyle, and so, it is difficult to stay on the diet. Most diets also exclude many favorite foods, and finally, after feeling deprived for too long, dieters simply give up and binge on their favorite foods. That is why a healthy lifestyle is much more effective in weight reduction in the long run, because it is a lifestyle, and not a life change, as most diets are.

Take for example, one of the hottest diet fads right now, the South Beach Diet. Many call it the "next Atkins," referring to the wildly popular low-carb Atkins diet that is sweeping the nation. South Beach professes to offer the "right" blend of carbohydrates and fats to promote weight loss. On the plus side, South Beach offers a nutritional blend of meats, vegetables, fruits, and grains that are broken down into three distinct phases. This diet is easier to maintain than many others are because it utilizes some good nutritional guidance along with cutting down calories. Unfortunately, the first two weeks of the diet are quite restrictive, and cut out all carbohydrates, sugars, fruit, grains, and alcohol. Then the plan gradually begins to add some of these items back into the diet. The first two weeks may be so difficult that many dieters do not stick with the plan long-term.

The Atkins diet is so popular that a whole industry of low-carb foods has grown up around it. However, this low-carbohydrate diet is so restrictive, that it is difficult to stay on for any length of time, and it cuts out nearly all fruits, grains, and sugars, especially in the initial stages of the diet, so it is quite difficult to maintain, and it is quite expensive, since it relies heavily on proteins, such as meats and cheeses. This diet is not concerned with fat, and it might be perfect for those people who do not enjoy a lot of vegetables and fruits in their diet. However, it is quite restrictive, and cuts out so many foods that nutritionally, it is not sound, or even desirable to stay on it for a long period.

The cabbage soup diet is quite popular because it helps a person lose quite a bit of weight in a short amount of time, and it is relatively easy to stay on for a week. This diet combines low fat and high-fiber to accomplish weight loss, and it might help lead the way into a longer lasting diet plan. However, the diet only lasts a week, and it is quite restrictive in terms of what you can eat. It is not meant for long-term weight loss, and so, it is not nutritionally sound. This diet may be fine to lose a few extra pounds, but it should not be considered a nutritional lifestyle.