We forget original meaning of diet
OVER the past few days the idea of dieting occupied my thoughts.
I had seen a newspaper story with a heading that proclaimed the benefits of a new diet. This made me think of how we have attributed a meaning to the word diet, not quite in keeping with its original meaning.
The original meaning of the word points to the range of food, be it plant or animal based, that we ingest regularly in order to live, and, preferably, live healthy lives. So the diet of a group of people would depend on the natural resources, plant and animal, the group is able to procure. This may include food of plant origin only, of plant as well as animal origin, or only of animal origin. This line of thought sees food as the source of nourishment for the bodies of humans and animals.
Of late, when we read the word diet we, or many of us, think of a planned regimen of consumables that promises to endow us, not so much with health, as with weight loss. There are vegan and vegetarian diets which are not aimed at weight loss, but are adhered to because of religious or other principles. But these diets are not the focus of this writing.
Dieting because of the desire to lose weight is the focus of this writing. And weight-loss is seen as a first step towards becoming more attractive to others. Here vanity is clearly at play. Thus we restrict ourselves from eating certain foods, or from eating them at certain times. A restriction on what a person may or may not eat does not, however, in all cases mean the pursuit of weight loss. This restriction might be in place in order to treat or prevent a medical condition such as diabetes.
However, generally, when we see the word diet, we think of a planned process of including some foods and excluding others from our eating patterns. And people in many parts of the world follow one or the other diet in order to become or remain slim. Dieting is part of many persons’ lives, and is often followed with a view to weight loss for the sake of a more attractive body. These persons often become obsessed with weight-loss programmes to the extent that their thoughts are almost wholly occupied by this, at the expense of living full, rounded lives.
Over the years I have read about many diets, most of which were guaranteed to promote weight loss. I cannot remember the details, but I remember the names of one or two of these. There was a macrobiotic diet, a crash diet, the Atkins diet and many more. I remember a diet that restricted the intake of carbohydrates. Another I remember is one that required that one takes either protein or carbohydrates but not both during the same meal.
For a number of years we have heard much of the Banting diet.
On our bookshelves I found a 1958 work by Richard Mackarness, Eat Fat & Grow Slim. This work outlines the background to what has become known as the Banting diet.
Banting has its origins in the work of William Harvey. He was an ear, nose and throat surgeon and had developed a theory as to why people become obese and remain so, even after trying all kinds of remedies. What remained was for him to test his theory.
The opportunity for this arose when, in 1862, William Banting consulted Harvey as a patient because he thought he was going deaf. Banting was an enormously fat person. In August 1862 he was 66 years old and weighed 91.6kg while he was 1.67m tall.
Harvey realised that Banting’s problem was not advancing deafness, but obesity. Harvey put Banting on an entirely new kind of diet.
Banting described the diet as quite pleasant, and that he fed as well as he did before following the diet. The diet had amazing results. By Christmas 1862 he was down to 83.4kg. By the following August he weighed only 70.7kg, which was nearly right for his height and age.
The diet Harvey prescribed was made up almost entirely of protein, fat, alcohol and roughage. These foods, of course, contain their own vitamin and mineral salts. The diet that slimmed Banting was a highfat, high-protein, unrestricted calorie diet, with only carbohydrate restricted.
Any person who wants to follow a diet must consult a health professional. But I have the idea that no responsible health practitioner will prescribe a diet unless it is necessary.
Dieting can be dangerous, unless there is medical supervision. Should a person suffer from nutrition deprivation, which can happen if a diet is not medically sound, that person may find that not only the body is deprived of nutrition, but also the mind. In children and young people, especially, if the mind is deprived of nutrition, there may be serious problems regarding learning of new knowledge and remembering.
A well-documented result of unsupervised dieting is anorexia nervosa. This is an illness that literally eats the body, and it may result in death. Usually very young people, mainly women, are diagnosed with anorexia. This fierce dieting aims at a thin body which is supposed to be more beautiful and desirable than that of a more plump body. Fashion houses and some sections of the media must take the blame for extorting young people to think that to be thin is to be beautiful.
By way of conclusion, let me say that only the privileged and the fortunate are able to follow a diet where they choose what they want to eat. A distressingly large number of people in the world do not have this choice, because they face hunger or even starvation. They are faced by food deprivation or even starvation.