Bites & Body Love (v)

This study says it all...restriction always backfires!

• Jamie Magdic

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I love using this study with clients because...well, there is just no arguing with it. AND it really shares how restriction is bringing us in the opposite direction of our goals for food freedom, peace from food noise, health, and body confidence

🍽️ The Minnesota Starvation Study: What It Reveals About Restriction and Recovery

Back in the 1940s, researchers set out to understand what happens to the body and mind during prolonged restriction.

What they found? It changed everything we know about food, weight, and recovery.

Here’s a glimpse:

  • 36 healthy men cut their calories in half for 6 months
  • They became obsessed with food - recipes, cravings, even dreams
  • Their energy crashed, moods shifted, and focus disappeared
  • When refeeding began, they couldn’t stop eating - and felt “out of control”

Sound familiar?

This study shows that what many call “lack of willpower” is actually biology doing its job.


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SPEAKER_00:

So, what is the Minnesota Starvation Study? I love using this study to explain restriction and its impact on your mind and your body, regardless if you were to be struggling with disordered thoughts or body image thoughts. What happens to your body and your mind when you are in restriction? So the study was done during World War II at Minnesota University, I believe. And the purpose of the study was to examine the impacts of starvation on the brain and body in case of a famine. And the plan was to develop recovery protocols for worn-torn populations. So there were 36 participants who participated in the study, and they were all men from the ages of 22 to 36 years old. And they were all healthy, fit, and they had a psychological assessment. These were all men who did not have a disordered eating relationship with food, we're not dieting, we're not just a healthy relationship with food and body. And that I'm naming as something that's important to note right now because when we talk about what restriction then caused mentally and physically, it's pretty wild. So there were three parts of this. There was the control phase, there was the semi-starvation phase, and then the rehabilitation phase. The control phase was 12 weeks long, and this was where they were eating normally to maintain that baseline and to all have that baseline, and they were eating 3200 calories per day. So then there was a semi-starvation phase, and this lasted 24 weeks, where they cut the calories in half to equate around 1500 calories. And this is gonna be your standard diet that you see promoted. 1500 calories promoting healthy diets. You see it everywhere. And so this is the amount of calories they were having, and their calories were so that their diet in all was low in calories, low in protein, low in fat, high in fiber, and mostly contained bread and potatoes. And this was designed to induce a 25% body weight loss. And then there was the rehabilitation phase that lasted 12 weeks. And in this phase, that was designed to slowly refeed, take time refeeding, and to experiment with the ideal amount of calories in the rehabilitation and recovery phase. And they were trying to test that optimal recovery. So now we're gonna talk about the key behavioral, physical, and psychological effects that this study had on those participants who were severely restricted with their calories being cut in half. And I want you to remember something here. We'll talk about it more later, but these people, as part of the study, they were monitored. So they could not stray from this diet. They, our body cannot compensate or fight back and do certain things that we in everyday life, if we went on a 1500 calorie diet, would give into. Strictly, they were held to full accountability to only eat those 1500 calories. So the physical effects, let's talk about the key physical effects. Number one, 25% of the body weight was lost. So they did succeed in that um in that goal, and 25% of weight loss, total body weight loss happened. They had a reduced metabolism, substantially reduced metabolism. There was a huge impact and decrease on metabolism to conserve energy. They had extreme weakness and fatigue. To even do everyday activities were a struggle for these folks. A lot of physical symptoms happened from swelling to edema to hair loss to cold intolerance and dizziness. So a huge physical impact on their body. They were not feeling well, and they saw it in all of their body systems. Now let's talk about the key psychological impacts of this study. This is what I find very interesting and helpful to discuss with folks who are in disordered eating patterns and who are restricting. Now, these men didn't have these issues prior to decreasing their food intake. So if you think about a diet or restriction or rules that you set on yourself, I want you to think about these the impacts that those things had on these healthy men and how psych psychologically and mentally things shifted in their brain due to restriction. The restriction of food on their brain, how did that play out mentally and psychologically? Let's talk about it. Number one, obsessive thoughts about food. These participants did not have, were did not obsessively think about food. Food was very held a very normal part in their life. They didn't think about it much. After this, and during this during this experiment and after this experiment, there became there was an obsession around food. They became very, very focused on when their next meal is coming in. They were looking at cookbooks constantly, wanting to, if they couldn't eat the food they wanted to engage in in some way by watching cooking shows, watching or in taking in recipes, saving recipes. They wanted to be their thoughts, were just always on food. The next thing, irritability, anxiety, and depression grew with these folks. Again, they didn't have that beforehand, but with the lack of food, moods definitely changed and they started developing anxiety and uh depression. Number three, social withdrawal. They actually stopped having interest in relationships or they started to stop going after relationships and socially interacting because their mind was so focused on food and that's where they wanted to keep it, and they did not have the energy, the focus, or the interest in social relationships anymore. There was cognitive slowing, so definitely a decrease in functioning cognitively and doing the everyday things, being able to focus. So now let's talk about the behavioral effects. Binging and hoarding started. This emerged even when there was no previous behaviors around food like this. Additionally, many of those participants reported feeling controlled by food rather than in control of food like they used to. Now I'm just giving you a glimpse into the study. You can go and read the study. In fact, I'll put some links below. It's very interesting. You can read about all the specific how the individuals experienced it and the different examples. It's really, really interesting. But I'm gonna go ahead and stop there. I want to talk about the key takeaways for your own recovery and what we can learn from this study and apply to your own life and your own relationship with food and body. So the first takeaway is that restriction is going to impact your relationship with food and body. It's gonna impact your body and your mind in significant ways. This study shows that caloric restriction alone can cause food obsession, social withdrawals, and anxiety. And as you can see, this isn't a failure of character. It's not a you problem. It's the restriction. It's biology. Number two key takeaway. Your cravings and food thoughts are normal. That is biology saying, feed me. Those obsessive thoughts that you have around food are to protect you. It's your body's way of saying, I need calories to be able to function. I am not gonna turn off my brain and my thoughts around food until I get enough food. It's not proof you're weak or not and not proof that you're undisciplined. It's proof that something needs to be addressed with your restriction. Third key takeaway is that your body is going to protect itself. It's going to slow down metabolism, conserve energy, and do all it can to take care of you. It wants to reserve those resources when it's underfed so you can continue to live and thrive and do what you need to do. Because your body is taking care of yourself, restriction will backfire every time. It does not work because your body is meant to survive and to thrive, and it does not want to be in a state of starvation and restriction. So it's gonna backfire physically and psychologically. Um, and by backfiring, I mean it's gonna do its job. It doesn't want to listen to diet culture and disordered or and body shaming and disordered ways of eating. It wants to take the best care of itself. The fourth key takeaway is that binging and overeating and feeling out of control with food is a very normal response to restriction. And restriction is the problem. It is not binging. I know binging doesn't feel good, but if we're trying to address binging, we need to address the actual cause, and one of those root causes is going to be restriction. Although binge eating is there's it's multifaceted, one thing that needs to be taken care of is the restriction and the dieting. Number five, recovery requires your you and your body to eat enough food consistently and adequately for a while. It's gonna take you trusting your body that it knows what it's talking about when it's sending those signals and continuing to be on your team to provide it what it needs. The study proves what diet culture ignores, which is that chronic restriction is unsustainable and it's biologically unsustainable, leading to both physical and emotional suffering. It's not the answer and it's not going to bring you to where you want to go. I love bringing research in. I love bringing research in because you really can't fight the research, the true research, not the funded research that, you know, always look at where this comes from. This was never intended to be a study that was used for discussing disordered eating and recovery, but it has become a key study in describing and showing the impacts of severe calorie restriction and what happens when you restrict your body, both physically and mentally. And I found it to be extremely helpful for clients who don't, who are scared to trust their body, and they're scared about increasing calories, and they're timid and apprehensive about feeding their body appropriately. These were healthy men without any disordered eating thoughts, any body image stressors, and a normal relationship with food and body where it didn't take up much space. And that's significantly changed throughout the study. And even for some participants after the study, their relationship with food and body was impacted in negative ways that then they had to work with and recover from due to the impacts of restriction. So, what I would say you can start with today is just reflect a bit, build some awareness, learn more about the study. Ask yourself is restriction working for you? Is it going to get you actually to where you want to go? The relationship with food and body that you desire for yourself that's grounded in your values. Until next time, you're doing great. I know this is really hard work, but you got this. Let me know if you need anything.