Low-Carb Diets

This past spring 17-year-old Kelly Steed and her parents tried the South Beach Diet. Kelly remembers: “For the first phase, which is 14 days, I think, you eat hardly any carbs and hardly any sugar, and no dairy products or anything like that. And so the first two weeks are pretty hard.” It was hard in part because of fatigue. “We all got kind of tired in the beginning,” she continues. That’s because carbohydrates are the body’s main source of energy.

Registered dietician Page Love says, “For an active young person, they’ve got to have that energy food throughout the day, particularly if they’re participating in school activities, sports, P.E. They’ve got to have those fuels coming into their meals, or they may risk potentially being more prone to injury and sickness and illness and not growing.”

Carbs provide energy for growth and activity, but they’re also a major source of anti-oxidants and fiber — keys to preventing disease later in life. “Particularly cancers of the G.I. tract, cancers of the stomach, of the large and small intestine, the colon cancer type problems,” says Love.

Despite the risks, the lo-carb craze is wildly popular because people lose weight fast. But experts say, it’s just not healthy, and often the weight comes right back. Love says: “You may regain quickly. Sometimes what you’ve lost is muscle, and you may regain fat. You may actually change the body composition in a negative form, from carrying more muscle mass, and then start to regain fat tissue.”

Kelly lost 15 pounds on her diet but gained half of it back. She says cutting back on carbs isn’t enough by itself. “I think that it’s everything combined. You have to work out and eat healthy,” she says.

Lo-carb diets have an added risk for teenage girls: the high protein intake can cause a loss of bone density over time, potentially increasing the risk of osteoporosis.

Fad dieting isn’t anything new, but in recent years, a trend of “extreme eating” has infiltrated the mainstream, with celebrities and alternative doctors alike hailing militant regimens as a means to getting thin and achieving optimal health. But often these diets don’t really promote wellness.

“Many extreme diets could actually be dangerous because they deprive your body of essential nutrients,” says Steven Margolin, a certified clinical nutritionist. “People who turn to extreme eating patterns are usually inspired by weight loss. Few really do it for their health.”

Leslie Bonci, director of sports medicine nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, says, “You need a variety of foods to get all the vitamins and minerals your body requires to function. When it comes to their eating habits, I always ask my clients to think about the big picture. Are you really going to be happy on a restrictive diet three months from now?”

Consider the following:

• Doctors say that it’s nearly impossible for a healthy, normally active teen to lose more than about three pounds per week of actual fatfrom their bodies, even on a starvation diet.
• Most, if not all, of the weight you lose during the first few days on a diet is water, not fat. You may feel thinner, but you won’t look thinner and you’ll probably bounce back up to your original weight once you resume eating normally.
• Drastically reducing food intake depletes the body’s access to the vitamins, minerals and fiber that it needs to stay healthy. This is especially true for growing adolescents.
• Radically cutting back on calories can make you tired, jittery and moody.
• Over the long term, a highly restrictive diet may cause other health problems, such as hair loss, brittle fingernails, dark under-eye circles, and muscles that may shrink and weaken.
• A long-term restrictive diet can cause permanent kidney and kidney damage.

After a full year, low-carbohydrate diets hold no significant weight loss advantage over conventional diets. Dieters most likely to benefit from a low-carb diet, at least in the short term, are those whose excess calories come from too much pasta, potatoes, bagels, soft drinks, juice or carbohydrate-based snacks. But these foods are difficult to avoid forever.

Some foods that are naturally low in carbohydrates have suddenly developed an undeserved reputation as low-calorie foods. Most of the low-carb diets now officially advise that protein foods be eaten only in amounts to satisfy hunger, and some even specify that lean meats should be chosen instead of fatty bacon and sausage.

Here are some more facts about low-carb diets:

• Foods labeled “low-carb” are not necessarily lower in calories than “regular” versions and don’t allow for larger portions.
• The endless portions of fatty meats, like bacon and sausage, some people consume when adhering to a low-carb diets are far from healthy.
• Learning to follow hunger signals, rather than eating the entire portion as served or as available, is important to maintain a healthy weight.
• The calorie and carb savings in specialty products may be relatively small and not worth the extra cost of these products. A better option is to choose whole-grain breads and eat less.
• Restricting food intake over a long period during a person’s teenage years can stunt growth.
• Following restrictive diets over a long period can delay some aspects of puberty, like breast development in females and muscle bulk in males.
• Teenage girls on restrictiv
• Finally, dieters can experience a decrease in resting energy expenditure, or the amount of calories a person burns at rest. This “slower metabolism” can make continuing to lose weight even more difficult and regaining weight easier.

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American Dietetic Association
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