December

In an effort to remove toxins from the body and lose weight, a dieter will adopt a regimen that includes limiting food intake to a liquid formula that promises to cleanse the body and cause rapid weight loss.  According to nutrition experts, these extremely restrictive diets actually can cause a variety of physical and mental health problems.  They are especially dangerous for people who are susceptible to eating disorders.  

One of the most popular liquid detox diets is the Master Cleanse, which was also known for more than 50 years as the Lemonade Diet.  During a cleanse period of three or more days, the dieter consumes a drink made from water, lemonade, cayenne pepper and maple syrup.  This concoction, which is lacking in essential vitamins, minerals, protein and fiber, is consumed up to six times per day.  No other food or drink except water is allowed during the cleanse.  Many dieters will also take laxatives and herbal supplements and undergo salt enemas to empty the intestines as part of a Master Cleanse diet.

According to Dr. Katherine Zeratsky, Mayo Clinic nutritionist, there is no scientific basis to detox diets.  Most toxins are removed from the body by the kidneys and liver and there is no evidence that additional toxins need to be removed by a detox diet.  The juice blend consumed during a detox diet is lacking in basic calories and nutrients that the body needs to thrive.  Instead of contributing to better health, detox diets like Master Cleanse can cause these side effects:

•    Increased lethargy that makes normal activities difficult.
•    Dehydration and electrolyte imbalance caused by flushing fluids from the body.
•    Lightheadedness, fainting, slowed heart rate
•    Increased risk of depression, low self-esteem, anxiety and emotional stress.
•    Development or worsening of eating disorders including pathological dieting and binge eating.
•    Weakening of the immune system and increased risk of infection and disease. 

For many people, using a starvation diet for rapid weight loss is part of a yo-yo diet pattern that includes repetitive cycles of losing and gaining weight.  According to the National Eating Disorders Association, yo-yo dieting can lead to serious health complications that include heart disease and changes to the body's natural metabolism.  People who have blood sugar disorders like diabetes should never attempt a starvation diet.  Dieters who reduce their intake of calcium over the long term can lose muscle mass and are putting themselves at risk of developing osteoporosis.  In addition, many studies show that people with eating disorders were dieting when they first developed symptoms of their disorder.

Starvation diets continue to be popular due in part to celebrity endorsements.  Victoria's Secret model Adriana Lima recently described her preparation for a televised fashion show as including a 3-week cleanse accompanied by twice-daily workouts.  After discussing her diet in an interview with the London Telegraph, she quickly backtracked and released a statement advising teenagers to avoid the type of diet she had just undergone.  

According to Melinda Johnson, spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, fasting and detoxing should be avoided.  This type of diet plan does not work long-term and helps perpetuate an unhealthy relationship with food.  To slim down quickly for a special occasion, Johnson recommends getting more aerobic exercise and reducing calorie intake as part of a well-balanced diet plan.  For help with anorexia or help with bulimia, please call our treatment center.

The result of photo re-touching is an almost impossible standard of beauty that can have a negative impact on the self-image of millions of "average" women and men.  Numerous studies have linked photo retouching with eating disorders, body-image anxiety and other serious health problems.

Commercial photo retouching can range from smoothing out a model's or celebrity's skin tone to reshaping a nose or shaving inches off the waist.  The bust may be increased in images of women while muscle tone is added to images of men.  Critics of the beauty industry in the U.S. and Europe have long opposed radical photo retouching because of the effect it can have on the psychology of women, men and especially teenagers.  According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, a significant number of teenage girls and boys use unhealthy measures such as bulimic binging, fasting, vomiting, taking laxatives, smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol to control their weight.  

At the 2011 annual meeting of the organization acknowledged that retouched photos in the media create unrealistic expectations of beauty, especially for impressionable children and teenagers.

The AMA called on advertisers to adopt new guidelines for altering images, especially in publications that target the young.

Adobe Photoshop is the software application that is often used to digitally alter photographs.  Now researchers at Dartmouth College have developed a software tool that can measure how much a photo has been altered by Photoshop.  The tool assigns a score of 1 to 5 to indicate the scale of the alternations (with a lower score indicating less retouching).  Dr. Hany Farid, a Dartmouth Computer Science professor, came up with the idea for the tool after reading about a movement among European legislators to put a uniform photo labeling system into place.  

Dr. Farid is hoping that the tool will provide an incentive for self-regulation among magazine publishers and advertisers.  With his Photoshop rating tool, publishers and advertisers would print a retouch score with every photo.  Readers could consult the score to determine whether the subject depicted in a photograph was untouched or had been heavily Photoshopped. 

Lesley Jane Seymour, former editor of Marie Claire magazine and current editor of More (a magazine targeting women over 40) stated in a New York Times article that surveys show that most readers want celebrities to look great but to also look real.  Most readers are aware that images are digitally altered and would like publishers and advertisers to use restraint when retouching photos. The involvement of technologists like Dr. Farid indicates that concern about the problem of using Photoshop to create false images seems to be growing.