January 10, 2005 – As the New Year arrives, it can be tempting to make a resolution to lose weight. But to truly “restore health”, it would be better to improve your lifestyle – including diet – in a sustainable way, rather than following a specific diet.
Both the EquiLibre Weight Action Group and the Association pour la santé publique du Québec (ASPQ) are categorical in this regard: a comprehensive approach must be adopted, combining the gradual and long-term adoption of more healthy eating habits. healthy during physical activity, as well as moments of relaxation.
Obsession with weight and body image
Because 33% of Quebecers are overweight and 14% are obese1, the resolution to lose a few pounds seems appropriate at first glance.
However, the desire to keep the figure tends to become an excessive concern in Quebec, according to Fannie Dagenais, dietitian-nutritionist at ÉquiLibre. “Data indicates that nearly 50% of women of normal weight want to lose weight2, 70% of adolescent girls make repeated efforts to lose weight or control their weight3, and one-third (33%) of nine-year-old girls have tried to lose weight3 », She indicates.
In this regard, the organization encourages people “to put aside the beauty criteria of our society in order to better respect the different body formats that are naturally present there”.
At the same time, a survey conducted in 2003 by the ASPQ, among 399 Quebec women4 and relating to weight loss products, services and methods (PSMA) that they use, is just as enlightening in terms of the obsession with weight:
- 37% of women who use PSMAs are of normal weight;
- 43% try to lose weight more than twice a year (including four times, for 13% of them!);
- 39% started to worry about their weight before the age of 19.
Mixed results from restrictive diets
Studies are increasingly confirming the limits of restrictive diets for sustainable weight loss. Recently, researchers in Boston published a study5 showing that four diets popular in the United States would prove to be little or not effective in the long term. Carried out from 2000 to 2002 on 160 people suffering from overweight, the study focused on the Atkins (low in carbohydrates), Ornish (vegetarian), Weight Watchers (low in calories) and Zone (balance of macronutrients such as protein, diet) diets. carbohydrates and fats).
After one year, the researchers observed a reduction of more than 5% in weight in 25% of the participants, and of 10% in 10% of the subjects. These modest weight losses occurred regardless of the diet followed.
According to the authors, the mixed effectiveness of diets depends in large part on the “yo-yo effect”, as well as the rate of quitting diets.
Martin LaSalle – PasseportSanté.net
Sources:
ÉquiLibre, Action Group on Weight. Website: www.equilibre.ca
Quebec Public Health Association (ASPQ): http://www.aspq.org/index.htm
1. Canadian Community Health Survey 2003. Online: http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/82-221-XIF/00604/tables/html/1228_03_e.htm
2. Ledoux M, Rivard M (2000) Body weight. In: Social and health survey 1998, Institut de la statistique du Québec, Chapter 8, 185-199.
3. Ledoux M, Mongeau L, Rivard M (2002) Weight and body image. In : Social and health survey of Quebec children and adolescents 1999, Institut de la statistique du Québec, Chapter 14, 311-344.
4. Association pour la santé publique au Québec (ASPQ), Survey on weight loss or control methods, Survey study conducted by the Bureau des interviewers professionnel, May 2003.
5. Dansinger ML, Gleason JA, Griffith JL, Selker HP, Schaefer EJ, Comparison of the Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone Diets for Weight Loss and Heart Disease Risk Reduction, Journal of the American Medical Asociation (JAMA), January 5, 2005, Vol. 293, No 1, 43-53. To obtain the study for free: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/293/1/43.
