Viola Davis recently came under fire for gaining weight for her portrayal of buxom blues legend, Ma Rainey. Social media critics suggested that the actress took space already fuller-figured artists, but another issue that needs examining is how the rapid extreme weight gain and loss can take a toll on the body over time.
In an interview with Indiewire, Davis said “I tried to gain as much [weight] as I could but [Ma Rainey] was really big, close to 300 pounds. I got close to 200. Ann Roth, the great costume designer, she said, ‘Viola, what body do you want to look like?’ And the body that I loved — once again I grew up with a lot of big women that I thought were the most beautiful woman in the world. So for me, it was Aretha Franklin. I wanted that body.”
In December, the actress showed off her subsequent weight loss in an Instagram photo thus far, which came presumably about a year after putting on pounds for the role.
So how does rapid weight gain and loss affect the body long term?
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“Half a pound to two pounds per week is what’s universally considered safe and sustainable,” says Jessica Crandall Snyder in an interview with Healthline. She is a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Losing weight too quickly, especially through the starvation method, can result in a litany of side effects, some more harmful than others.
According to research from Stanford University Medical Center, a small study investigated people with pre-diabetic symptoms to look at baseline levels of gene expression, protein production, microbiome, and genome in 23 subjects.
Some were insulin-resistant (who showed unusual levels of inflammation), while others were still insulin-sensitive (and did not show inflammation).
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The researchers then placed the participants on a high-calorie diet for one month. According to the study’s finding, people in both groups gained an average of 6lbs experienced inflammation.
Both groups also started to show shifts in their gut bacteria, as well as gene expression related to heart failure.
However, when the participants lost some of the weight, symptoms subsided and bodily systems went back to normal very quickly.
“The goal here was to characterize what happens during weight gain and loss at a level that no one has ever done before…In the end, we literally made billions of measurements.” And the results confirmed what we know about the human body, he said in a release: “It’s a whole system, not just a few isolated components, so there are system-wide changes when people gain weight.”
How weight gain or loss can affect metabolism
Rapid weight loss usually occurs from extreme calorie deprivation, for example, people who go from eating 3,000 to 1,200 calories a day.
However, our body recognizes this as a sign of limited food supply and goes into starvation mode subsequently making your metabolism naturally slow a lot sooner than it should.
A recent study tracked “The Biggest Loser” contestants and found that the weight they shed, the more their metabolisms stalled. Ultimately, this led to many of the participants to gain more weight than when they’d started filming.
Overall, as tempting as it can be to utilize fast weight gain or loss tactics to achieve your desired results, don’t. You’ll regret it.
