Diets don’t work. Sure, they may help you lose weight in a short amount of time, but you won’t stay skinny forever.
No one wants to believe this — not even the studies I found in my research. While reading the Harvard Health website regarding the ineffective nature of diets, they spoon-fed me a newsletter on diets to do in addition to their fitness program. Why are we obsessed with staying unhealthily skinny?
The cultural obsession with dieting stems from our love of celebrities. If they can crash and lose 15 pounds in a week, why can’t we?
Related: [COLUMN: Anxious about Halloween? Here are five last-minute costumes]
These celebrity diets are expensive and unrealistic for the average person, with only one doctor in the U.S. offering a mini gastric sleeve costing a national average of over $30k. Their elite practices create an unattainable standard of health and beauty to be marketed to the average American as normal. Without further ado, let’s discuss the harm these procedures cause.
Peptide shots: glorified diet pills
Want to know how housewives stayed slim in the 1960s? Their diet pills contained meth.
Diet pills don’t have meth in them anymore. However, celebrities like Bono promote peptide therapy in both pill and shot form, claiming the same effects as diet pills.
These peptides are technically amino acids or building blocks of proteins. That being said, these peptides are the same thing as athletic steroids. They have the same kinds of side effects and dangers but are presented in a much more clean, effeminate light.
Clinics are promoting these treatments as something long-term without acknowledging the potential effects of high testosterone output and across-the-board nausea. Of course, these side effects aren’t available on many clinics’ websites. Why would you want to know the risks when the treatment makes you skinny?
Gastric sleeve: no longer for life-threatening complications
The first sleeve gastrectomy was performed in 1990, providing a breakthrough for doctors looking to treat severe, life-threatening obesity. Now, Mariah Carey, an already skinny celebrity, has gotten one.
This trend of the mini sleeve, as many websites call it, is promoting a surgery meant for people who are dangerously overweight. The average person does not need one, especially when the side effects of a mini sleeve include malnutrition. Most celebrities are already at risk for malnutrition – look at the baby food diet or juice cleansing. The notion of being healthy does not coincide with the notion of being skinny. Stop taking appointments with doctors who aren’t meant to help you.
Related: [Waldron Arts Center reopens after ‘Great Gatsby’-inspired renovations]
What being healthy actually looks like
Dieting is dangerous. It’s cult-like. Being healthy doesn’t mean being on a diet; it simply means putting good things into your body. As a college student, it’s hard to stay healthy, but getting those three meals a day in your system with some sort of fruit or vegetable is enough. It won’t kill you to have dessert or coffee or “inflammatory” oils.
Eating is enough. Don’t let an unqualified celebrity tell you otherwise.
