Teenage women after diets more susceptible to smoking and excessive alcohol consumption

Smoking and alcohol excesses: Diets increase risky behavior in adolescent girls

Although losing weight can be an important contribution to better health, those who suffer with a diet often fail. Because of the so-called yo-yo effect, the weight increases quickly after the special nutrition program. Diets have other drawbacks: they make teens more susceptible to smoking and alcohol excesses.

Losing weight is not always good for your health

Be it because you have too much extra pounds on your ribs, want to feel fitter or do something good for your health, there are many reasons why people want to reduce their weight. However, experts generally advise people who want to lose weight from dieting; because according to scientific studies, these bring almost nothing. Rather, in many cases they allow the overweight to continue to rise due to the yo-yo effect. Diets bring another disadvantage. As Canadian researchers now report, such nutrition programs in female adolescents increase the risk of smoking and alcohol excesses.

Teenage girls who are dieting are more prone to harmful behaviors such as smoking and alcohol excesses. Canadian researchers have now found out. (Image: Printemps / fotolia.com)

Diets can promote harmful behaviors

According to a study by the University of Waterloo (Canada), teenage girls who are on a diet are more prone to harmful behaviors such as smoking, alcohol excesses and skipping breakfast.

As the university reported in a communication, the study showed that teenage girls who were on a diet more often exhibited one or more high-risk behaviors three years later than those who did not.

"It seems obvious that there is a link between diets and behaviors such as smoking and omitting meals, but for something like binge drinking, the explanation is not so clear," said study leader Amanda Raffoul.

Enormous pressure on pubescent girls

"Our findings suggest that diets and other risky health behaviors may be associated with the underlying factors, such as a poor body image," said the expert.

"The link between diets and other harmful behaviors is worrying as 70 percent of girls reported dieting in the last three years," Raffoul said.

"Post-puberty changes often lead to weight gain in girls and there is incredible pressure on social media and elsewhere to maintain and maintain the ideal body."

Understand complex interactions better

To get their results, the researchers looked at data from more than 3,300 high school girls in Ontario who participated in a study called COMPASS.

The study, published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, found that dieting girls smoked 1.6 times more frequently and skipped breakfast, and smoked 1.5 times more frequently and engaged in intob drinking.

"Intentional weight loss should not necessarily be encouraged, especially among this population, as well-intentioned initiatives that promote dieting may do more harm than good," Raffoul said.

"Instead, we should focus more on health than on weight as a health indicator."

Sharon Kirkpatrick, co-author of the study, added, "This study highlights the importance of considering factors related to health, including behaviors and the variety of influences on them, in combination."

And, "Only by understanding the complex interactions of these factors can we identify effective interventions and predict and monitor possible unintended effects of such interventions." (Ad)