"Like an elephant..." Weight gain and health crisis caused by excessive dieting

Cases are increasing where dieting started for health purposes returns as a boomerang that collapses bodily functions. The case of a middle-aged woman whose weight increased rapidly due to repeated excessive dietary control and yo-yo effects shows how wrong dieting affects whole-body health beyond simple physical changes.

Metabolic diseases and joint burden caused by muscle loss

In the video reported by TV CHOSUN LIFE, Myeong-hui maintained around 50kg in her 20s, but her weight swelled to a maximum of 117kg due to childcare stress. Broken eating habits, such as mainly eating instant food at night, led to obesity. The yo-yo effect that came along with the rapid weight increase collapsed the overall balance of her body. Myeong-hui is currently diagnosed with hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia, taking medication every day and complaining of the difficulties of health management.

Experts cite the decrease in muscle mass as the biggest problem with excessive dieting. As people age, muscle naturally decreases, but if muscle is lost through extreme dietary control, the basal metabolic rate drops, changing the body into a constitution that is easy to gain weight again. In particular, muscle acts as a warehouse that stores glucose entering after a meal, but if muscle mass decreases, the glucose that has nowhere to go accumulates as fat. This leads to an increase in visceral fat, which causes the incidence of hypertension and hyperlipidemia to increase by up to 2 times, diabetes by 2.1 times, and metabolic syndrome by up to 4.2 times compared to normal people.

Weight gain is also fatal to joint health. It is known that even if weight increases by only 1kg, the burden on the knee joint increases by as much as 4 to 7 times. Myeong-hui also feels pain every time she sits down or stands up due to excessive weight. In fact, it has been found that obese people have a risk of knee arthritis nearly 4 times higher than overweight people.

Physical traces left by repeated yo-yo effects and extreme diets

To regain her past figure, Myeong-hui mobilized all possible means, such as taking diet pills and herbal medicine, and receiving fat-dissolving injections and detox juices. However, the video reported that even if these methods are effective momentarily, the yo-yo effect repeats where weight is immediately regained once they are stopped. This process left behind sagging skin without elasticity.

Bad eating habits and rapid weight changes also threatened gut health. As she gained weight, Myeong-hui's gut health worsened, causing the discomfort of visiting the bathroom several times a day. According to hospital test results, her gut health had deteriorated to the point where polyps in the large intestine had to be removed. This is interpreted as a result of an unbalanced diet and rapid physical changes coinciding.

Ultimately, the diet that aimed for health resulted in muscle loss, metabolic diseases, joint pain, and intestinal diseases, lowering the quality of daily life. Experts advise that dieting after middle age should not be simple weight loss, but should be directed toward maintaining muscle mass and normalizing metabolic functions.

Source: TVCHOSUN JOY (YouTube)