High School Girls Twice as Likely to Take Diet Pills

Everyone is looking for a shortcut to losing weight, especially teenaged girls:

High school girls in Minnesota were twice as likely to take diet pills in 2004 than they were five years earlier, according to the results of a new survey.

University of Minnesota researchers followed 2,500 young women from 1999 to 2004 and surveyed them on a variety of issues related to diet, exercise, weight and body image. The early results showed 7.5 percent used diet pills, but the later results jumped to 14.2 percent.

One in five women ages 19 to 20 used diet pills, according to the Project EAT (Eating Among Teens) survey released Monday. One in five also admitted using diet pills or laxatives, vomiting or skipping meals - strategies the researchers characterized as very unhealthy.

Fad Diets: Weight Loss Magic or Myth?

Why do people keep trying extreme fad diets?

The “syrup diet” is just one of the many diet plans (albeit one of the more extreme) to capture our weight-crazed fancy over the years. From Atkins to South Beach to the Zone to the Blood Type Diet -- to name just a few -- many of us are always on the lookout for the “magic bullet” that will help us shed pounds quickly, and more or less effortlessly.
Why, despite the advice of most nutrition experts, are we fascinated by the myriad diet plans crowding bookstore shelves?
“Most individuals want cutting-edge solutions for weight loss, and fad diets offer, at least on the surface, ‘new’ ways to beat the boring mathematical reality of long-term weight loss,” explains Robin Steagall, RD, nutrition communications manager for the Calorie Control Council.

Source: Fad Diets: Weight Loss Magic or Myth?