What Are Weight Losing Companies Lying To You About?

It was a typical lunch. Girls and guys flocked the tent plaza socializing and chatting eagerly, the established cliques in their own territory, and other groups of friends floating in their respective packs. One such group sat down at an overcrowded table, with their lunch, and were chatting enthusiastically. They talked about everything and nothing, trivial facts about celebrities, the newest songs and maybe gossip about their fellow classmates. Soon, after many topics had come and gone, came up the topic of fat. With that topic came the “competition” to see who was fattest, the current winner complimenting her friends on their slimness, all the while saying “I really should go on a diet since I’m so fat. Do you know how heavy I am!”

Somehow along the way, people have started interpreting the word “heavy” with the word “fat”, even though fat is only a quarter of the weight of muscle. Another thing is seeing fat as a bad thing. Words like “bulky” or “fat” or “heavy” are used as insults, and some people are embarrassed to announce their weight in fear of judgement, even from a young age. In the renaissance period as well as the cultural revolution in China, being fat or a bit pudgy was seen as a good thing since it meant you had enough to eat. It seems being fat was only seen as a bad thing in countries and time periods where food was in abundance, and not when food was scarce.

Now when there’s food in abundance in some countries, people can afford to do things like dieting, something completely against our natural instinct. They do this to get “slim” or “fit” , even though it’s not healthy. An example is the “calorie diet”. People using this dieting method count the amount of calories they eat to avoid “getting fat”. One kind of product being sold to “aid” people taking this diet are called “100 calorie packs”. Basically, these are snack packs that only contain 100 calories to make counting calories easier. The companies actually aren’t lying when they say it’s 100 calories, the actual problem is the content of the bags.

In order for companies to make snacks that taste just as good as normal snacks, but only 100 calories, they revert to artificial chemicals and additives. Your body can process natural foods, without chemicals easily, but food with man made chemicals are hard for your body to process. Since your body cannot break down the chemicals, it sends it to your liver. Eating too many chemical filled artificial foods can put too much pressure on your liver, which isn’t good for your health. Over dieting can also lead to eating disorders such as Anorexia and Bulimia.

Anorexia is when you purposely starve yourself. Some causes are depression and the fear of becoming fat, and this can cause your stomach to shrink be able to take less food. And if the Anorexia is severe, you may have to be hospitalised to receive nutrients through a tube that goes straight into your bloodstream so your main organs can continue to function.

Bulimia is the kind of the opposite. It is when you overeat or binge, and then vomit everything out. This is not good as it hurts your body to regurgitate things often. Both of these eating disorders can be a side effect of dieting and can have long term effects on your body.

Some people who are aware of this, turn to exercising. Exercising in general is a good thing, however many people get confused with again, the word “fat” and the word “heavy”. Although it’s true that many people with huge excess amounts of fat tend to be heavy as well, it does not mean that fat itself is heavy. Going back to the fact mentioned before, that muscle is 4 times heavier than fat, people are unaware of the fact that exercise will make you heavier.

If your goal is to get fit, stronger, or less fat, exercise could be a good thing. However if weight loss is your goal, then exercising is only going to build muscle which is again, a lot heavier than fat. Muscle also like fat, takes up space. So if your goal was to fit a smaller size, exercising may only do more damage than good as you build muscle. Many people unknowingly enter gyms and “slimming” class, with exercise instructors encouraging a gym membership or other like things so you can “get slim” or “lose fat”.

Overall, it’s pretty hard for people to be slim, fit, or a “good size” with so many tricks of the trade unbeknownst to the common people , so it may be better for people to just stick with being healthy!

Written by Jasmine