Behind the Scenes

Survey of Teenagers

(Graphic by Jiawen; Photos in the text also by Jiawen)

Why would you diet?

To ascertain the reasons of dieting of our audience, which will justify our hypothesis that as people are drawn to quick weight-loss, they will be drawn to fad dieting. As such, this is a problem in society.

• Losing weight quickly
  
   

   0%
  
  Losing weight healthily
  
   

   0%
  
  Keep fit
  
   

   0%
  
  Would not Diet
  
   

   0%
  
  
  Total Votes: 0

Survey

What the teens say...

• If you were to go on a diet/are on a diet, what would you do? What food groups/types of food would you eliminate?

  a) Grains, b) Vegetables c) Fruits d) Dairy e) Protein foods f) Others: ___________________

• Do you know what food faddism is?

  a) Yes b) No

• Are you interested to know more?

  a) Yes b) No

• When you go on a diet, what is your main aim? Is it to lose weight efficiently?

  (open-ended response)

• Have you done any research on diets?

  a) Yes b) No

• If yes, then what do you know?

  (open-ended response) - not analyzed in our methodology

“If you were to go on a diet/are on a diet, what would you do? What food groups/types of food would you eliminate?”

From the graph, it is clear that many of the surveyed teenagers perceived dairy to cause the greatest weight increase, followed by carbohydrates/grains and then sweets/oils. This is evidence of some misconception present in food groups. Dairy products do contain fat. However, they also consist of essential nutrients and thus should be consumed in moderation. As such, this reflects the misconception (pertaining to nutritional values of food) that fad diets are built upon.

“Do you know what food faddism is?”

From the graph, approximately 93% of respondents did not possess knowledge about “food faddism”. This suggests a lack of knowledge and awareness in the teenage population, as they might not be able to differentiate a fad diet from a healthy one.

“Are you interested to know more?”

We are able to see that a large majority of the respondents are interested in knowing more of food faddism. Hence this justifies our project, and our goals of reaching out to teenagers to promote understanding and instill the essential knowledge about food faddism.

“When you go on a diet, what is your main aim?”

From this, out of 26 people who would undergo diets, 18 of them do it to “lose weight efficiently”. This is precisely the aim of fad diets, in which the dieter will shed pounds at high speed and very efficiently. As such, this shows that teenagers might be susceptible to falling for the tempting offers that fad diets promise, with “losing weight efficiently” being the highest promised benefit.

“Have you done any research on diets?”

The majority of our respondents have not done prior research on diets, although the majority of respondents also agree that they would undergo diets for the sake of losing weight efficiently. This lack of knowledge contributes to a lack of understanding of what constitutes a healthy diet, which perhaps might make teenagers more vulnerable to falling into the trap of fad diets as they search for efficient methods of weight loss.