General information only, not medical, legal, tax, or investment advice. Consult a qualified professional.
Don’t starve or purge to control weight
In one line
People with anorexia nervosa died at about 5.9 times the rate of their peers. Long stretches of severe dieting made an eating disorder much more likely. Moving more is the safer side of weight control.
What it costs
Free. You also keep the money you would have spent on diet products.
What you get
Across 36 studies, the standardized mortality ratio for anorexia nervosa was 5.86. About one death in five was suicide. In a 3-year study of students, girls who dieted severely had 18 times the rate of a new eating disorder.
How strong the evidence is
Source
Arcelus J et al. (2011). Arch Gen Psychiatry. Patton GC et al. (1999). BMJ.
Watch-outs
“Severe” means staying far below what the body needs for a long time. It is not skipping one meal. If there is purging, heavy guilt after eating, or a scale you can’t leave alone, get medical care. The book says this is not a willpower problem.
Adapted from HowToLiveBetter item 28-1.
Next habitRelated
Quit smoking. Sooner keeps more years
A U.S. study reported that people who kept smoking lived more than 10 years less, on average, than people who never smoked. Quitting before 40 avoided most of the extra risk of death from continuing.
No smoking in the home or the car
About 600,000 deaths in 2004 were attributed to secondhand smoke, and roughly 3 in 10 of those deaths were children. Home is where people breathe it the longest.
Brush, and clean between the teeth once a day
A Japanese follow-up found slightly fewer deaths among people who used floss or an interdental brush. Older adults with few teeth left were on the higher-death side. That does not prove the floss caused the difference.