the cost in human health and life: Dieting—especially “yo-yo dieting,” repeatedly gaining and losing weight—ultimately causes changes in brain functioning that increase insulin and leptin resistance (causing weight gain, which leads to dieting, and so on), which leads to actual disease. And eating disorders have the highest mortality of any mental illness—higher even than depression—killing 250,000 people a year.21 The thin ideal makes us sick. And it kills some of us.
