Counting calories and going on the scales are all out the window
today, International No Dieting Day.
Sponsored by Student Nutrition Action Committee and the Student
Welfare Commission, students will be asked to take a pledge and
wear a blue ribbon to signify the pledge has been taken.
Information booths will be located throughout campus from 11
a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Court of Sciences, Bruin Plaza, Sunset quad,
Inverted Fountain and Perloff quad.
In addition, there will be a bigger event that includes fitness
activities and other nutrition booths at De Neve Plaza from 5 p.m.
to 9 p.m.
The INDD pledge consists of eating healthy and exercising
without worrying about losing weight.
The pledge calls for students to appreciate their strengths,
talents and interests and also to question the body ideals
portrayed in the media.
“We’re hoping that people will focus on their health
as opposed to their appearance,” said Karen Minero, assistant
director of the UCLA Center for Women & Men.
The main message SNAC and SWC hope to convey is diets do not
work.
People who limit calorie intake not only eventually gain all the
weight back, they also experience slower metabolism due to their
diet, making it even harder to lose weight, Minero said.
In addition, poor concentration, low energy, sleep disturbance,
gastrointestinal upsets, depression, irritability and anger are all
results of dieting, Minero said.
The event hopes to banish messages put out by society that fat
is ugly, unhealthy and something to lose at all cost.
As a result of these messages, dieters have poor eating habits
and may even take unsafe and unregulated pills which may lead to
long-term health problems, according to INDD supporters.
“Healthy and fit Bruins come in all shapes and
sizes,” Minero said.
Minero, along with two others, teaches a SNAC class that helps
students gain important information about eating well and feeling
good about their bodies.
The day was established in 1992 by Mary Evans Young, director of
the British anti-diet campaign, Diet Breakers.
It has since grown and gained the support of organizations
worldwide.
In the general population, one in two women and one in four men
are on a diet at any given time, according to Minero.
The event also focuses on fat discrimination. It is, to many,
one of the last forms of accepted discrimination.
A study published in April by the Journal of American Medical
Association found that obese children have a quality of life as
bad, if not worse, as those children who undergo chemotherapy
because obese children are teased by peers and adults.