A Nation Obsessed With Dieting

A research paper that focuses on a nation obsessed with dieting can look at the health aspect or the cultural aspect of the United States and its obsession with weight, weight loss and dieting. Paper Masters outlines a few ways to go about researching dieting in America on this page.

A good research paper has goals. You will want to focus your project on the following elements of a basic research paper according to APA guidelines:

• An introduction and a thesis statement
• A body with supporting evidence and in-text citations
• A conclusion
• Reference list

Suggested Web Sites and Books on A Nation Obsessed with Dieting

1. Dieting
   Your Personality - your diet
   meal skipper/convenient diner/steady snacker/emotional eater
2. Robert Kushner, M.D. Medical Director, Northwestern Memorial Hospital Wellness Institute /Author, American Medical Association's Obesity Treatment Guide for Physicians / Author, Dr. Kushners Personality Type Diet - which has been featured on CNN & Good Morning America
3. Lose Weight by Kengrossman -- Feel unattractive - liposuction,gastric bypass, lost weight only to put it back on the yo-yo effect, better health?
4. Foods That Cause You To Loose Weight/Author - Neal Barnard, M.D.
5. The Complete Idiots Guide to Total Nutrition
6. Read This Before Your Start Any Diet - Author Ellen Daryn - Jan 2005

Emotions and Dieting

• How emotions play a part, habits, binge eating, boring, good tasting food left out, no sweets, weight loss up & down, plateau, try all the diet pill, bypass surgery, no snacks, clothes to tight, look at my self in disgust, diet lose it only to gain it back and then some, the yo-you effect.

One of the problems associated with attempting to lose weight is driven by the proliferation of claims that are made for various plans and products. In the 1980s enormous claims were made for the Pritikin Diet and other, high-carbohydrate, variants of it. In recent years great claims have been made for the low-carbohydrate Atkins diet. Some of what is pushed by the latter is nutritionally suspect; the claim made by Atkins advocates that a diet high in fats will not result in high serum cholesterol levels unless fats are combined with carbohydrates is not something that mainstream nutritionists endorse and Atkins Diet advocates do not address the fact that it is those diets that feature little in the way of fats, particularly saturated fats, that expert medical opinion most often recommends for the promotion of heart health; it is low-fat, high-fiber diets, not high-fat, high-protein diets such as the Atkins Diet, that are prescribed for people suffering from atherosclerosis and high blood pressure.

Many diets have come and gone over the last 50 years and some of them have involved frank absurdities. The "macrobiotic diet" was very popular among counter-culture types in the 1960s and 1970s; this was a diet that advised people to make nutritional choices on the basis of the shape and color of foods. The popularity of the low-carbohydrate diets, after having enjoyed an enormous vogue over the last few years, Maich, reports, seems to be waning as more and more people experience problems with it in the form of craving for sweets, lethargy, and a general dissatisfaction with limited food choices. The problem with the Atkins diet, as with almost every diet, is staying on it. One can lose weight on almost any diet by mustering one's will power over a span of months, but keeping weight off is much more problematic and staying on some of the diets, even if that could be accomplished, might prove to be very bad for one's health over the long run.