Nutrition science has helped to develop a lot of knowledge that has brought numerous benefits to human health. Breaking down food into its elementary parts, the nutrients, has made it possible, for example, to understand the biological function of some foods and their impact on the metabolism of human beings.
This breakdown has shifted the focus from food to nutrients, and with the development of the food industry, some scientific knowledge has been used indiscriminately and speculatively creating myths and legends around certain foods.
By hiding behind scientific principles of nutrition, the diet industry has launched fads around some foods, demonizing others. Just think of the carbohydrates (bread and pasta) that have become the scapegoat of every weight loss diet.
In Chinese medicine, food and diet are essential for the balance of the organism and consequently for a healthy body.
In our society, however, only one goal considered healthy is recognized in nutrition and diet: weight loss . In this way the physical form becomes the protagonist: a healthy, performing and successful person is a thin person. But how do they manage on the one hand the drive to the ideal of thinness and on the other the drive to consume more and more food products? This is where the diet industry offers a multitude of dietary claims and products.
In recent years, the media and some nutrition specialists have promoted the fasting mimicking diet as a healthy practice that can bring many health benefits. In addition to losing weight, it appears to bring about metabolic and cellular changes that affect oxidative damage and inflammation. This practice appears to reduce the risk of disease and increase life expectancy.
Some studies available on the effects of intermittent fasting , however, indicate a significant increase in the amount of food introduced in the 6 or 12 hours following the hours of fasting. This effect can also be explained from a biological point of view: the acute moderation of the diet (as occurs in the fasting phase) lowers the levels of tryptophan, a precursor of serotonin, which by altering the signals of hunger and satiety, increases the probability to run into an uncontrolled diet to restore normal levels of tryptophan and serotonin.
The diet, therefore, intended as a means to combat weight gain, seems to be often associated with a paradoxical increase in the risk of disordered eating. Our organism is programmed for survival and to naturally seek its “nourishment” based on the physiological stimuli of hunger and satiety. When a control is introduced, there is the risk of the possibility of losing control (Dalla Ragione, 2007) thus incurring a disinhibition and a greater vulnerability to the compulsion towards food and therefore to overeating with a consequent weight gain.
The adoption of extreme and rigid dietary rules , in fact, through the mechanism of cognitive disinhibition, favors binges: when the dietary rules are too rigid, the effort not to transgress is very high and often difficult to maintain over time. When a rule breaks occurs, the typical “all or nothing” thought favors disinhibition (“I transgressed the diet, then I might as well give up all kinds of control and binge”).
Furthermore, we know that fasting can increase the risk of eating disorders in people who are vulnerable. A 2008 study (Stice et al.) Found that the incidence of fasting in middle school girls was the most powerful predictor for the onset of eating disorders .
A very interesting aspect is related to how our body image can change following a short-term fast. We know that many factors can induce changes in body image, including social confrontation and physiological changes that occur after eating.
One study found that in patients with anorexia nervosa , eating food triggers some changes in body image, linking the feeling of fullness with dissatisfaction with the body. In these cases, fasting could prevent negative self-assessments that can occur after a normal meal.
Recent research (Schaumberg & Anderson, 2014) conducted on a sample of 196 university students who did not have any type of eating disorder , showed that individuals (in particular those who showed greater cognitive disinhibition and a tendency to fast as a habit to prevent weight gain or counteracting the effects of overeating) who were asked to fast for 24 hours, received strong reinforcement from the psychological experience of an improved body image.
In conclusion, it can be said that people who sustained fasting subsequently experienced positive changes in body image. All this confirms that practices such as fasting mimicking diet can promote pathological eating patterns and in vulnerable people, increase the risk of eating disorders .
Given the association between fasting and strict and extreme dietary rules with the development of pathological eating behaviors, it is necessary to convey correct information on diets and advertisements for extreme dietary practices and to encourage a critical attitude towards certain messages in order to promote a healthy lifestyle.
All this especially towards more vulnerable individuals such as adolescents, people who have a negative body image and those who have high levels of cognitive disinhibition.
