Eating Disorder – Starvation Diet

Starvation ieting is the practice of ingesting food in a regulated fashion to achieve a particular objective. In many cases the goal is weight loss, but some athletes aspire to gain weight (usually in the form of muscle) and diets can also be used to maintain a stable body weight.

There are several kinds of diets:
Weight-loss diets restrict the intake of specific foods, or food in general, to reduce body weight. What works to reduce body weight for one person will not necessarily work for another, due to metabolic differences and lifestyle factors. Also, for a variety of reasons, most people find it very difficult to maintain significant weight loss over time. There is some thought that losing weight quickly may actually make it more difficult to maintain the loss

over time. It is also possible that cutting calorie intake too low slows or prevents weight loss. The National Institutes of Health notes that the commonly recommended program of reduced caloric intake along with increased physical activity has a long-term failure rate of 98%. Many professional athletes impose weight-gain diets on themselves. American football players may try to "bulk up" through weight-gain diets in order to gain an advantage on the field with a higher mass.

Individuals who are underweight, such as those recovering from anorexia nervosa or from starvation, may undergo weight-gain diets which, unlike those of athletes, has the goal of restoring normal levels of body fat, muscle, and stores of essential nutrients.

Many people in the acting industry may choose to lose or gain weight depending on the role they're given.

Receiving adequate nutrition through a well-balanced diet is critical during childhood and adolescence. Unless a doctor says otherwise, low-carb, low-fat, or other specialty diets for children who are not heavily obese are unhealthy because they deprive the body of the building blocks of cells (namely energy and lipids in the above examples).

It is especially notable that, as more cultures scrutinize their diets, many improperly educated mothers consider putting their children on restricted diets that actually do more harm than good. This is extremely deleterious to a young child's health because a full and balanced diet (fats, carbohydrates, protein, vitamins, minerals, fiber, etc.) is needed for growth. Vegetarian diets can work for children as long as all needed nutrients are received. A doctor should be consulted before putting any child on a specialized diet.

Research also shows that putting children on diet foods can be harmful. The brain is unable to learn how to correlate taste with nutritional value, which is why such children may consistently overeat later in life despite adequate nutritional intake.

In the broadest sense, at least some targeted dieting has clearly existed since prehistoric times for various social, religious, and biological reasons.