A surprising yet quite interesting study revealed by the Sydney Morning Herald showed that most of the brides want to shed an average of 9 kgs before the big day. Every woman want to look her best when walking down the aisle. The idea of having hundreds of pictures of you taken when you are not looking your best is quite frightening. Pressure is high on the shoulders of the brides. Family members, grooms themselves, wedding magazines and dressmakers, etc tend to encourage the weight loss. Problem is the higher the pressure, the more likely the weight loss will only be temporary.
Dr Ivanka Prichard from Flinders University in South Australia followed 350 brides before and six months after their wedding. Half of those brides wanted to shed an average of 9 kilos. On the big day, half of them had lost weight but the majority had only lost between 1 and 2 kgs. The women who had the greatest pressure to lose weight prior to their wedding are the ones who generally gained the most a few months later. The reason for this is quite simple. Prior to their wedding they drastically changed their lifestyle by exercising more, eating less and watching more what they ate. The problem is that those changes were so drastic and not realistic with what a healthy diet should be that as soon as the wedding was over, those women were back to their usual lifestyle. This is what we called yo-yo dieting. Those women gained an average of 2.14 kgs six months after their wedding.
A study is underway to follow men before and after their wedding.
