Is my friend not eating enough?

Question

I have a friend who doesn't eat much. Or so it seems to me. For breakfast she hardly eats one fourth of a bagel, for lunch she eats a small power bar and SOMETIMES an mini apple sauce cup.
And for dinner she barely eats a taco. She sticks to a really small eating portions like that. She is trying to lose weight.
But is this going too far, or am I being paranoid?

She thinks she's fat. She's always complaining, and calling herself a fatty all the time. I tried to talk to her about it, and she said she eats enough to keep her alive and that's good enough for her.

She is about 5'4 and weighs 132 pounds...... She's dropping though..................

Answer 1

If you are still in school I would talk to the guidance counseler.

Answer 2

That doesn't sound like enough...but to really know, you need to count up the calories she gets and compare that to her height. Just google some BMI calculators and use her height to calculate how much she should weight if she were healthy/had a normal BMI. Generally a 5" to 5"3 girl needs only about 1200 calories a day. 5"6 around 1500 calories a day. Taller, maybe 1800 to 2000 calories a day. Most of us overeat, so 1200 sounds like very little, but that's the truth of it. She sounds like she is eating:
Bagel (375 calories) --> 100 calories (she eats about 1/4)
Power bar --> generally 200 calories
Apple sauce cup --> 100 calories
Taco --> 350 calories
Plus anything she drank (even a spoon of honey is 60 calories).

Sooo she's getting about 750 calories on a good day...which is too little unless she is 4" tall and sits/lies down all day.

Let her know that she should just work out cause it's faster weight loss, and cutting calories alone will make her skin and hair ugly and is bad for her bones...

Answer 3

Small portions are good - but you have to make sure that you still have a balanced diet in order to lose weight. Is she beginning to look/feel lethargic or obsessively comment about her weight? These are early warning signs that she might be eating too little. Losing weight is a combination of food and exercise, and she needs to have enough energy to exercise. Though I don't know your friend, her portions seem dangerously small.

Answer 4

You are right to be worried. That diet isn't nearly enough to fill your friend's nutritional needs, and it isn't balanced.

Might I suggest adding a nice large chef's salad, with herb and vinegar dressing? Or broth-based soups? Or a good gazpacho, with chunks of vegetables in it instead of just being all blended up until it looks like tomato soup.

Your friend might even want to consult a nutritionist.

Presently, she's looking to wreck her health unless she gets her diet back on an even keel.

Answer 5

She needs to eat a balanced meal, shes pretty much starving herself without really starving herself. It's not healthy. To loose weight you need to eat right and exercise. Just tell her that and encourage her, or shes going to get really sick.

Answer 6

omg that is totally not healthy.....
!!!!
if she wants to loose weight.....trust me shes never going to....
shes just gunna end up sick......
i have tried loosing weight by hardly eating but its the worst thing u can do to ur body....
try talking ur friend into eating something healthy instead of hardly eating...

Answer 7

i think that she is over doing it why don't u just talk to her n tell her that she should eat bt healy things instead of starving n not eat

Answer 8

Yea, that's way to small! You should talk to her or her parents(depending on age)

Answer 9

THEN BRING HIM OR HER TO TACO BELL!!!!!