Even the most determined dieters could be overwhelmed by continuous cravings and hunger. As a response, some of them have started to take an unusual action, which could turn to a rather harmful diet fad. To make themselves feel fuller, dieters swallow cotton balls and wash them down with orange juice. Many have asked whether this method is safe.
Experts have recently reacted to this new development and said that cotton ball diets may eventually lead to a dangerous eating disorder.
While, they typically don’t contain harmful substances, cotton balls are a non-nutritive material, which could deprive dieters of essential calories, fats, proteins, vitamin and minerals. This could cause significant development and growth issues on teenagers, especially girls. There’s always the risk that cotton balls would stay indefinitely in the stomach or block the intestines and colon. This could cause permanent damages on the digestive system. Experts have assured dieters that extreme weight loss methods won’t work in long-term period.
There is no quick fix in weight loss problems and the problem with improper diet methods is that fat is actually the last thing that the body removes. The first thing that dieters lose is water and then muscle mass. In high risk groups, cotton ball diet could lead to harmful consequences.
Cotton balls may be high in plant-based fibers, but they are not the dietary fiber that people need. Extreme dieters may argue that they don’t need real food if the zero-calorie cotton balls are so filling. Some of them swallow cotton balls dry and others add some gelatin to make these balls slide into stomach more easily.
Dieters have come up with many weight loss methods, some are safe and others are not. With the “back to front” diet plan, people eat dinner in the morning, average-sized meals for lunch and very light breakfast-style food in the evening. They argue that it is easier to burn off heavy-calorie, dinner-style breakfast early in the day. During rigorous diet plans, some people choose low-calorie baby foods that are rich in nutrients, although they may have an unappetizing consistency of runny gloop. They may also drink a larger quantity of coffee that is believed to increase the resting metabolic rate by about ten percent. But these dieters may experience the usual caffeine-related side effects and symptoms of withdrawal when they no longer drinking enough coffee.