Every year, May 6 is observed as International No Diet Day to promote body acceptance and body diversity. Due to unattainable and unrealistic body standards around the world, people are suffering from mental and physical health related issues. This global initiative is to help people develop a healthy relationship with food and their bodies.

International No Diet Day’s goal is to establish the fact that there is no one specific “correct” body type or shape thereby teaching people how to eat a balanced diet and how to prevent eating disorders and weight loss. International No Diet Day discusses about weight discrimination, spreads awareness and reminds people that a break from dieting is not bad by any means.

Health issues due to diet

Crash Dieting or binge eating means that your body does not have enough nutrients to keep you fit and healthy. This could be detrimental to our overall well-being and reduce a happy and active life. Poor and inadequate nutrition leads to weakness as well as fatigue and can lead to chronic health problems e.g.

• Low blood pressure
• Heart attack and stroke
• Type 2 diabetes mellitus
• Osteoporosis
• Cancers
• Depression

On International No Diet Day, you are free to eat anything and everything that you want. An unsupervised diet leads to unhealthy metabolic changes, hormonal changes, loss of bone mass and menstrual irregularities etc. It’s important to understand that being healthy is enough and you don’t have to push yourself to look a certain way.

International No Diet Day educates us to love ourselves although sometimes it’s hard to look in the mirror and be in love with ourselves inside. Young people and especially women need to say no to societal pressures that create a lot of psychological stress. Let’s use International No Diet Day to realize that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes.