Along with joy and excitement, the festive and wedding season brings along the pressure of looking good. Many of us go into a tizzy to achieve the ‘perfect body’ to fit into trendy clothes and make an impression offline and on social media. The pressure to look good is intensified by the validation of people—relatives, friends and acquaintances attending gatherings, family reunions, and glamorous celebrations. This is further aggravated by societal beauty standards that glorify slim, toned figures, which in turn push people to embark on last-minute fitness and diet plans.
Desperate cases
Thirty-five-year-old Kanupriya Ranjan (name changed on request), an HR professional with a tech company in Pune, started dieting and intensified her gym regime from September onwards, mainly for fat loss. “I have many Diwali parties, office events and functions to attend from October onwards and I want to look good. I weighed about 70 kg, and with my keto diet and gym routine, it has been brought down to 65 kg,” says Ranjan.
She is feeling good about losing 5 kg but also experiencing fatigue. Did she consult a dietician for the keto diet? “No, a friend also lost weight following a keto diet so I took her plan,” reveals Ranjan.
Expert says
“Festive season sees a surge in quick-fix solutions. As people rush to lose weight in time to fit into specific outfits or conform to certain societal beauty standards. Social media, especially platforms like Instagram, plays a huge role in this. It bombards us with airbrushed images, unrealistic success stories, and ads for detoxes, diet pills, and crash exercise programs. There’s constant reinforcement of the false belief that beauty and health are determined by body shape and size. You see trends come and go—many with zero scientific backing or, worse, posing outright risks to health. If these diets or trends worked, we wouldn’t need to keep hopping from one fad to another, desperately looking for the next ‘solution’. Instead, we’d only need one approach for a lifetime,” says Kripa Jalan, a Harvard-trained nutritionist.
Upsurge
Come September, gyms begin to see a surge in memberships. Crash diets, detoxes, and fitness challenges, festive-ready physiques of celebrities, star-studded Diwali parties fuel a desire for perfect bodies. It results in people making a beeline for rapid body transformations for the season. Quick fixes come with their share of problems. An abrupt lifestyle change—overexercising or extreme calorie restriction—not only affects physical health but can also cause mental stress. Like Ranjan, people observing crash diets and exercise regimes experience many more side effects.
Prachi Chandra, Lead Clinical Nutritionist, Sakra World Hospital Bengaluru, says, “Fad exercises popular during festive and wedding seasons include overly intense or high-impact workouts, 21-day quick-fix programmes promising rapid results, 75 hard programmes etc. leading to ill consequences on health. Consequences of these types of drinks and fad exercise programmes on the body in the long-term are nutrient deficiencies, fatigue and weakness, decreased metabolism, increased risk of constipation and bloating, eating disorders, hormonal imbalances, decreased muscle mass and negative impact on mental health and cardiometabolic disorders.”
Another case
Twenty-eight-year-old PR professional Nishit Priya is working out to lose weight before her sister’s wedding in November. “I want to feel confident and comfortable in my outfit for the special day. I want to lose about 8–10 kg by the wedding date. This will not only help me look my best but also motivate me to continue my healthy habits beyond the event.” But she isn’t resorting to a crash diet or any fads floating on social media. She has cut down on sugar and packaged food, chocolates, brownies, ice cream and street food. “I never had breakfast but now I do breakfast like fruits, bread, etc. For lunch, I eat home-cooked food. And I consume fox nuts, almonds, roasted chickpeas or apples as snacks. I also ensure to drink plenty of water throughout the day,” says Delhi-based Priya. When it comes to exercise, Priya is doing a mix of leg, chest, back, cardio and Zumba classes.
Larger realities
Chandra says fad diets and exercises are often ineffective for sustainable weight loss. According to Chandra, trending fad diets and weight loss drinks yield short-term results. But these tend to be unbalanced, nutrient-deficient, and difficult to maintain in the long term. They lack scientific evidence and are potentially harmful to overall health. “A recent trending viral drink is ‘Tadpole Water,’ in which chia seeds soaked in warm water with added lemon juice form a thick gel in water. Small seeds resemble floating tadpoles. The taste of the drink is funky. After consuming this drink for a week, there is a loss of a few kilograms of weight contributed by the high fibre content of chia seeds, leading to satiety, hence reducing food intake. However, it leads to a loss of muscle mass and not the fat content.”
Fad diets and crash exercise routines can have several short- and long-term consequences. “They can lead to rapid weight fluctuations, intense feelings of guilt and shame around food, obsession with food and calorie counting, hair loss and poor skin health, missed periods for women and social isolation,” says Jalan. She goes on to add, “One of the more dangerous consequences is ‘yo-yo dieting’, which puts you at greater risk for heart attacks and strokes. Your body is like a finely-tuned machine, and sudden changes in food intake or exercise can throw off blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels, placing extra strain on your heart. What’s worse is that many of these side effects—like extreme fatigue or food guilt—are often seen as ‘normal’ in our society, making it difficult for people to realise the extent of the harm they’re doing to their bodies and mental health.”
Take away
Experts advise you to plan your weight loss in advance, as quick-fix solutions don’t help in the long run. Rinki Kumari, Chief Dietician, Fortis Hospital, Cunningham Road, Bangalore, states, “People should consult us 2-3 months in advance. We can make a diet plan that will include meditation, yoga, good hydration, and sleep. Basically a holistic way to lose weight.”
Shweta Moolchandani, a lifestyle influencer, feels that as long as you are losing weight for your health, it is fine but doing it for social media is not right. “I live in Delhi and everyone around me wants to lose weight, look good and wear their best clothes during the season. There is nothing wrong with it, but it should be for yourself, not for others and certainly not for social media.”
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