Selena Tan, a third-year psychology student, had a best friend who ate only Jell-O for one meal each day.
Even after two months of restrictive eating, Tan said that last time she saw her friend, it looked like she did not lose any weight.
“I didn’t see any physical changes,” she said.
Severely limiting food consumption still attracts some students who want to lose weight quickly to either fit in a dress or comfortably wear a bathing suit, but dietitians recommend against it, saying it is only a short-term solution and can cause health problems.
Not eating enough food may become a problem because of metabolism decrease. When consuming fewer calories, the body thinks it is in starvation mode, so it wants to hold on to whatever calories it can and in fact will store them even more efficiently, said Dana Ellis, a cardiac dietitian at the UCLA Medical Center.
As a result of food deprivation, the body starts to store every calorie as fat, according to an article by Sheri Barke, a dietitian at the UCLA Arthur Ashe Health and Wellness Center.
This is also shown in studies when starved laboratory animals store calories as fats before the calories are stored in the muscles or even in the brain tissue, said Janet Tomiyama, a psychology graduate student.
Dieting usually works only for short-term weight loss. Once the individual is done with the diet plan, he or she often reverts back to the habits he or she had, gaining back the lost weight, Ellis said.
In a study by Tomiyama, the majority of her subjects lost 5 to 10 percent of their body weight. Two years later, the weight of two-thirds of the subjects was greater than the weight of the subjects before starting to diet.
Health professionals are now using a holistic definition of a healthy weight.
If you are giving your body a healthy dose of food, exercise and rest, you should be at a healthy weight, said Jill DeJager, the nutrition education coordinator for UCLA Student Development Health Education.
Weight is not an accurate measure of health for reasons such as genetics being a possible weight determinant, Tomiyama said.
One does not need to look at a chart or a scale to determine a healthy weight. It is better to find other ways to determine health, such as knowing your cholesterol level from a blood test, she said.
But some students still unhealthily limit their consumption of food.
Currently, the most common diets for college students are the Atkins diet and the master cleanse diet, also known as the lemonade diet, DeJager said.
The Atkins diet consists of fewer carbohydrates than a typical diet. It has excessive protein and fat while restricting carbohydrates, she said.
The Atkins diet could be a problem for students because carbohydrates are the main source of energy for the brain ““ important fuel for when the brain is working harder. Also, because the Atkins diet is much higher in fat and protein and has fewer carbohydrates, it could put extra strain on the heart, Ellis said.
In contrast, there is a lemonade diet that only consists of lemon juice, water, maple syrup and cayenne pepper for about 10 days, DeJager said.
An issue with the lemonade diet is the extremely low caloric intake: about 650 calories per day, she said.
On this type of diet, one will lose weight, but it’s not a sustainable weight loss, Ellis said.
“I don’t think people should diet, ever,” Tomiyama said. “If they change anything, they should exercise more.”
In addition to physical activity, experts say keeping a food diary focusing on the kinds of foods eaten rather than counting calories is a great way to watch your body. But one should not eliminate foods or stop eating completely.
“We are more weight-obsessed in our culture. Maybe it’s time to look at more direct indicators of health,” Tomiyama said.