A new study confirms what you probably already know: Weight-loss diets really are the pits — especially if you start dieting when you're young. For the study, researchers from the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior in Seattle asked 1,340 female college students to reveal what age they first went on a diet, which ranged from ages 3 (!) to 26.
Ten years after the initial surveys took place, researchers caught up with the study subjects. While you might think that the youngest first-time dieters would grow up to be the very pictures of health, this group was actually the most likely to later be overweight or obese, develop extreme weight-control behaviors like self-induced vomiting, and overdo it on alcohol.
In an interview with CBS News, study author Pamela Keel, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Psychology at Florida State University, implied that dieting may not be the only culprit: the social, psychological, and biological factors that lead you to diet in the first place could also contribute to issues down the road. In other words, a weight-obsessed mom, propensity for compulsive behavior, and a family history of obesity or alcoholism could spur unhealthy habits — no matter when you first joined Weight Watchers or stopped eating carbs. "It is also possible that restricting food intake at an early age could influence the developing brain in ways that alter sensitivity to reward or likelihood of engaging in risky behaviors," says Keel.
Obviously this research isn't license to go off and eat three pints of ice cream. The takeaway is that it's smart to promote and demonstrate healthy, sustainable eating habits — not fad diets that promise fast solutions — especially when you're around youngish girls who, for the record, are supposed to gain weight and body fat as they enter puberty.
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Elizabeth Narins is a Brooklyn, NY-based writer and a former senior editor at Cosmopolitan.com, where she wrote about fitness, health, and more. Follow her at @ejnarins.
