‘Weight loss costs women £807 per pound’

Nov 22 2007 by Rin Simpson, Western Mail

EVERY pound of weight dieting women lose during their lives will cost them a staggering £807 to achieve, according to a poll out today.

The survey shows that women can expect to spend an average of £2,422 a year on such dieting and fitness aids as gym membership, exercise DVDs, supplements and extra fruit and veg.

Yet, on average, women will only lose up to 3lb a year – most of which they put back on – while spending up to £150,164 over a lifetime on their weight-loss regimes.

The survey of 2,000 young women, who had an average age of 23, also found a number of worrying trends in tactics to lose weight, including:

Nine in 10 (90%) have gone at least a day without eating, with 30% of those going two or more days without food and 7% going more than four days without;

A fifth (20%) have followed a pattern of having an “eat day” followed by a “non-eat day” and 47% claim to only eat one meal a day;

More than half (53%) of those questioned said a diet to them meant eating less than 1,000 calories a day and a fifth (20%) said it was eating less than 800 calories a day;

A third (34%) have taken slimming pills to lose weight, 30% make themselves sick and 11% have taken speed or cocaine to step up their metabolism, and,

One in 10 women said they have lost half a stone in a week and 6% claim to have lost a stone in two weeks.

The survey, for More magazine, found women typically start such bad habits at the age of 15.

It also uncovered how women like to start a diet around four weeks before a big event.

Eight out of 10 women want to be a size 10 or under, with 40% thinking a size 10 is perfect.

Around a third (30%) want to be a size eight, and 9% want to be a size six or under.

Only 15% of young women think they could be happy as a size 12, only 5% could be happy as a size 14 and only 1% would be happy with a size 16 frame.

Celebrity singer Victoria Beckham was voted the “world’s best dieter” in the poll, followed by singers Lily Allen in second place and Geri Halliwell in third.

A total of 67% of young women questioned said they believed celebrities achieved their slim bodies by following a “no food diet”.

But the poll found that most women (90%) could not stick to a diet for longer than a week at a time despite 19% saying they tried to diet every day.

More editor Lisa Smosarski said, “The reason young women can’t lose weight is because they equate dieting with not eating.

“They look at celebrities like Victoria Beckham and think the only way she could possibly achieve such a tiny frame is by not eating.

“As a result, a whole generation of women have a dysfunctional eating pattern of endless mini starvation diets.

“They eat one day and then starve the next or eat only once a day.

“But a week later they’re back where they stated – weighing the same.”

Psychologist Benna Waites , joint head of adult psychology at Powys Local Health Board, said the figures were “concerning”.

She said, “I’m taken aback by the number of women not eating for whole days.

“Bulimia is defined by the pattern of bingeing and then compensating for that by starving.”

She warned that going without food, or reducing calorie intake to less than 1,000 per day, can have massive consequences on the body.

She continued, “You make yourself vulnerable to bingeing by starving yourself or dramatically cutting back on calories.

“You start to obsess about food, you start to fantasise about foods you would like to eat.

“When your blood sugar is low you’ll crave a quick hit, things that are very high in calories.

“Your body is going into a starvation response, it’s pushing you to over-eat because it’s saying ‘I don’t know when the next meal is coming, I better eat now’.

“It’s a dangerous business messing with the natural rhythm of ‘I’m hungry, I’m going to eat a reasonable amount’.”

She added, “If any change is going to happen it needs to be sustainable over a long time.

“Successful weight loss tends to be slow and steady over a period of time and it needs tobe about lifestyle change.”

Powys-based nutritionist Jane Franks, says counting calories is not the best way to lose weight anyway.

She said, “I don’t really think in calories because I look at a good balance of protein, carbohydrates and fat at every meal, and eating little and often. It’s about keeping it balanced which is a sensible approach.

“This approach of counting calories and not eating – or eating so little is terrible for your health.

“We need a balanced diet to give us the building blocks for everything from our brains to our bones.”

She added, “And don’t eat diet foods, anything with the word diet in it like diet drinks, diet sodas, sweeteners. I believe in natural food, food which hasn’t been processed, hasn’t been through a factory, basically.”