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find your dream career! ascpskincare.com/career-toolkits 27 e Skinny on Dieting Looking healthy isn't necessarily the same as being healthy by Alex Caspero In today's influencer-driven world, there is increased pressure on "looking" healthy: having six-pack abs, buff biceps, or an impossibly narrow waist. We often assume that because our favorite Instagram models look fit, their diet must be ideal. However, this is often far from the case. It's important to understand there is a difference between looking healthy and being healthy. Being thin doesn't always refl ect what's going on inside; we can likely name someone who eats fast food and has never seen the inside of a gym—yet they don't gain weight. That's called good genes, not an endorsement to try their burger-and-fries diet. Just as we wouldn't follow the dietary advice of our fast-food-loving thin friend, we need to be cautious about following diet advice from an infl uencer who just happens to have a thin body. Science matters, not just someone's physical appearance. HEALTHY AT EVERY SIZE Just as there are thin people with unhealthy diets, there are also overweight people who don't present with clinical signs of poor health. A systematic review found that a third of overweight adults showed no markers of abnormal metabolism. 1 Having a larger body doesn't automatically equate to an unhealthy diet. DIETING AND WEIGHT LOSS Any diet is likely to "work" at fi rst. Restricting calories of any type, especially with marathon sessions at the gym, will almost always result in drastic weight loss. That doesn't mean the diet is healthy—or sustainable. The problem with fad diets is they rarely promote aspects of health and longevity, characteristics that are much harder to measure than simply losing a few pounds. Many processes are happening in our bodies at a molecular level that we can't see or measure objectively, processes that determine our long-term health and our chance of developing chronic diseases. For that, we must rely on the large body of research indicating which dietary patterns contribute to health and longevity. DIETS AND HEALTH: WHAT WE KNOW WORKS For reduced disease risk and increased longevity, we look to the Blue Zones. The Blue Zones are pockets of the planet with high percentages of centenarians—those who live to be over 100. They also have extremely low rates of chronic diseases— markers of a lifetime of healthy diets. expertadvice FEED YOUR FACE Here's what we know works: • Eat mostly plants, especially beans. Meat is consumed rarely, in small portions of 3–4 ounces. Blue Zoners eat meat about fi ve times per month, on average. • Stop eating when your stomach is 80 percent full. • Eat your smallest meal of the day in the late afternoon or evening; eat the largest meal in the morning. • Replace soda with water or unsweetened tea. With very few exceptions, people in Blue Zones consume just four beverages: water, coff ee, tea, and wine. Being skinny or buff doesn't automatically mean you're healthy on the inside. Ditch fad diets and focus instead on what the healthiest and longest-living people do. Note 1. Hanli Lin et al., "The Prevalence, Metabolic Risk and Eff ects of Lifestyle Intervention for Metabolically Healthy Obesity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis," Medicine 96, no. 47 (November 2017): e8838.