High School Girls That Use Laxatives can develop life threatening medical complications
As a personal trainer and weight loss coach one of the most common problems I run into is the idea of using laxatives and diet pills as a way to quicken the weight loss process. The problem is becoming rampant and people are getting sick and developing life threatening medical complications from a method that has no long lasting benefits or permanent effect on fat loss.
There are many reason I don't advise taking any of these illusions of quick weight loss success. One reason is that once you start to think that something helps, you start to use it as a crutch. The other is the negative health effects of laxatives. Any weight loss achieved by the use of laxatives is due to the water you "lose" and a decrease in lean muscle mass in greater or equal part to any fat loss. On top of that, getting dehydrated is very counter productive to long term weight loss.
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Unfortunately laxatives are very commonly used by those suffering from eating disorders making them a very easy target for a quick weight loss solution already.
The lure of laxatives is not in the actual weight loss but in the feeling the user gets from using them. The calories eaten are already absorbed before the laxative does its job and thus the factor of losing weight by eliminating the food is useless. What the user gets is a temporary massive fluid loss. When the fluids are replaced in the next 48-72 hours the user feels the need to repeat the vicious yet still useless cycle.
When the use of laxatives becomes habitual a host of side effects such has bloody diarrhea, dehydration, nausea and vomiting can occur. Hardly the body physiology that would lead to long lasting and healthy weight loss. Extended use of laxatives in high school girls can leave them without the ability to move their bowels without them. Such permanent bowel damage can even lead to death.
Nobody cares how cute and lean you are when you are dead.
You could almost understand the lure of a quick weight loss fix if laxatives actually worked, but they don't and they are dangerous. Yet every year 400-500 million dollars are spent on laxatives and 3.5 to 7% of those dollars are spent by young high school girls dying to be thin, literally.
As mentioned earlier the girls most likely to use laxatives are those that already have self image problems and 40-75% of bulimic people also use laxatives. The dangers of laxative abuse in those that are healthy are apparent and increase exponentially when you add in the bulimia factor. It's scary, especially when its your girl that is doing this to herself.
Often, as most parents know, logic, reason and scary statistics do not convince high school girls. So how do we get them to stop? We show them a quicker, healthier and better way to achieve what they want.
If your child is overweight, get them active. Love them unconditionally and get the family out doing things together. Give your girl a sense of self worth that is not possible to sustain under the circumstances that laxatives induce. High school sports like basketball, track and field or volleyball require a certain performance standard to succeed. Reward and heap praise on your girl for the success she accomplishes in an activity that really fires her up. One small step at a time her confidence will increase and with that, so will her body image. When someone truly loves who they are and what they can do, they do not want to harm themselves.
Educate by example. Your girl despite her teenage fight for individualism is still an impressionable person that looks up to and follows her parent's example. You need to get yourself in shape, not only to set an example but to be around long enough to see your grandchildren. Your girl can only do better when she knows a better way. The person that will show her that way is you.
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