Diet disasters

There are people who resort to dangerous dieting to lose weight and look slim, but with disastrous consequences.

A 25-year-old woman from Hangzhou in eastern Zhejiang province, China, tried eating less for six straight days despite weighing only 55 kilograms.

The woman, using the alias Qingqing, ate only boiled vegetables, chicken breast, and low-sugar fruits totaling 800 calories a day for six days, then indulged on the seventh day by gorging on hot pot, fried chicken, hot chicken-flavor noodles, milk tea, and nuts, the Xinmin Evening News (XEN) reported, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Qingqing reduced her weight by 7.5 kilograms to 47.5 kilograms in just one month, according to XEN.

On 14 May, it was another binge-eating day. She ate a large bucket of fried chicken at noon and had two packs of hot chicken-flavor noodles in the evening, SCMP reported, citing XEN.

That night, Qingqing felt extreme pain in her stomach, waist and back. She was rushed to a hospital, where a doctor diagnosed her with acute pancreatitis.

The doctor, who declined to be identified, explained that the organ became inflamed after secreting a large amount of digestive enzymes over a short period, which damaged it, according to SCMP.

Meanwhile, a 39-year-old man from China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region did not eat for three days and then survived on raw crablets for the next three days.

A doctor found the digestive system of the man, surnamed Qin, inflamed and blamed it on the raw crabs he ate.

“But if he had not eaten the crabs, he would possibly have lost his life,” the doctor said, according to SCMP.

Qin was walking on a beach in Haikou, Hainan Island, on 27 May when large waves suddenly swept him out to sea, SCMP reported.

He drifted for a day before coming upon a buoy, which he clung to while waiting for rescue.

When three days passed without being noticed by ferries sailing through the Qiongzhou Strait, Qin was forced to eat about 80 small raw crabs.

He survived on the tiny crustaceans until two fishermen spotted him clinging to the buoy on his seventh day at sea.