engleski

Faddy crash diets in student population

Weight management is raising phenomenon in young people, only not as a result of health concern but a reaction to pervasive cult of slenderness largely perpetuated through the media. The aim of our research was to determine how students, especially females, perceive themselves, and manage their body weight. Also, we wanted to see the impact of media bombarding with different fad diets. 149 students completed questionnaires, 119 females and 30 males, age 18-24. Using self-reported height and weight, BMI was calculated ; 12.1% were underweight and 16.1% overweight. The results showed that according to self-perceived body size only 5.4% participants thought they were underweight, while 21.5% thought being overweight. As expected, 42.0% of females were trying to lose weight and dieting. For females, the issue seems to lie with feeling fat (44.0%) to a greater extent than being overweight (26.0%). 68.0% of dieting females were on fad diet 1-4 times with personal dissatisfaction being the main motive. Almost half of them (46.0%) were not persistent in keeping the diet, and 32.0% said they had gain back lost pounds within next 6 months. Although BMI’ s showed 33.3% males were overweight, only 16.7% thought they were, and 10.0% were trying to lose weight and dieting. 22.6% used magazines as a source of diet, 15.4% took seriously nutritional advices from magazines, and 14.9% of them took a fad diet. In conclusion, body weight management by dieting is widely spreaded among females, and popular magazines are, unfortunately, the source of diet in many cases.

student population; fad diets; media; obesity

nije evidentirano