Among those who began dieting before age 14, 84 percent said they weren't able to maintain any permanent weight loss. This compares with 67 percent of those who started dieting at age 14 or later..

Ikeda said the survey results are particularly troubling, as other studies have shown that dieting during adolescence results in weight gain, not weight loss.

"There's a myth out there that calorie restriction on the whole is a positive way to lose weight," said Ikeda. "But studies have found that high school girls who said they were dieting were at greater risk for becoming obese three years later."

Several respondents in her survey said they were not significantly overweight when they started dieting as young teens. "My concern is that there is a sub sample of the population that is particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of yo-yo dieting," said Ikeda. "Many women in the study said they wished they had never started dieting in the first place."

Ikeda cautions that her survey was not a randomized sampling of obese women in the United States and that this limits her ability to generalize the findings. In addition, there was no comparison group of women with BMIs of less than 30.

Nevertheless, the survey provides some key insights into the dieting experiences of a significant number of obese women, said Ikeda.

"I suggest that dietitians and obese women shift their focus from weight to metabolic fitness," said Ikeda. "They should look at ways to improve blood pressure and levels of glucose, insulin and lipids rather than what the scale says."

To help advise families with overweight children, Ikeda has developed a pamphlet that focuses on behavioral changes rather than on the child's weight. Guidelines include limiting television viewing time to less than two hours a day, encouraging kids to play actively at least 60 minutes a day, checking to see that they are eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day, and limiting consumption of nutrient-poor junk food.

Ikeda admits that her anti-dieting views on weight and health put her in the minority among nutrition and health professionals. "If people have already seriously tried to lose weight three times and regained that weight back all three times, I'd say stop dieting and live with the weight they've got," said Ikeda. "At some point, you've got to say, 'This is not working for me.' You need to find an alternative. Adopt a healthy lifestyle, and let the weight stabilize."

Woman And Smoking 114,000 people die each year in the United Kingdom from smoking related illness and disease, an increasing number of these are women. The risks that women take by smoking are many fold and are well documented. Of these 114,000 deaths, over 42,000 of them are women.

Weight-loss diets have long been promoted as a permanent cure for "obesity," but they rarely produce permanent or long lasting results.

The temporary and modest weight losses with commercial diet programs are not a surprise, according to Dr. Wadden, because no one knows how to achieve permanent weight loss.

If you are a young woman bowler who wants to apply for a college bowling scholarship then you should consider attending a showcase or bowling camp.

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How  to increase your performance on the sporting field. Do you want to give yourself an edge over other athletes? Strength training with free weights or weight machines may help you meet these goals.

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