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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (May 5, 1963)
Are You Dieting Dam efiFoim.ckT-? By THEODORE IRWIN Obsessed with the elusive vision of a slim figure, an increasing number .. of Americans are joining the hunt for a quick-and-easy way to subtract weight "crash diets," "pills that melt pounds away," advice on "breaking up fatty deposits," and programs to "stop count ing calories." What most citizens don't realize is that unsci entific fad dieting can be harmful to their health Leading nutrition authorities, alarmed at the trend, point to a wide variety of ill-effects from dietary deficiencies in persons who go off on a poorly devised reducing binge. "There have been definite neurological dis turbances, with patients on the verge of convul sions, when they have gone too long on a so called milk diet alone, due to magnesium defi ciencies," says Dr. Charles Glen King, president of the Nutrition Foundation. "Continued severe protein deficiencies may cause loss of hair and premature graying. Skin eruptions have resulted from a diet of unbalanced fats." Dr. Elmer L. Severinghaus, associate director of the Institute of Nutrition Sciences at Colum bia University, warns that lack of vital nutrients in a fad diet can bring on weakness and fatigue that could lead to serious accidents. On the basis of his work with overweight pa tients in a clinic, Dr. Albert Stunkard, professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania found that a high percentage of women showed severe emotional disorders in connection with their drastic dieting. Total fasting is one of the current vogues among frantic "fatties" determined to slender ize at any cost The starvation idea received nationwide impetus last fall, following an ex periment in a Philadelphia hospital where obese patients lost a lot of weight after being wholly deprived of food for 10 days, with no intake but water, tea, coffee, and vitamins. Many overweight men and women who had heard about the wholesale weight losses through fasting or who had skimmed through published reports on the project overlooked one important fact: the starvation went on in a hospital, under the watchful eyes of nurses and doctors. Dr. Garfield G. Duncan, of the Pennsylvania Family Wttkly, May 5, IN "VSLM. nf-'- ,' 3 r, '"V lLh.X. J it f.,.i .-f.Vs Vt . Ti.' ' : i . w
