Kerala Teen Dies After Water Fasting: Experts Warn Against Online Diet Fads

An 18-year-old girl from Thalassery, Kerala, lost her life after months of extreme water-only fasting, all in the pursuit of weight loss as advised on the internet. Her case raises serious concerns about toxic body image pressures and also brings light to the dangers of blindly following unverified diet trends online.

The girl abstained from consuming a proper diet and had been surviving only on hot water for nearly six months. She was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Thalassery Co-operative Hospital 12 days before her passing. Dr Nagesh Manohar Prabhu, a consultant physician, revealed that she weighed just 24 kg, with critically low blood sugar, sodium, and blood pressure. Her body was too weak to recover, even with ventilator support.

This heartbreaking incident is a wake-up call about the fatal consequences of this careless diet culture that is being followed by today's generations.

What Do The Experts Have To Say?

“Teens today are increasingly unhappy with the way they look and resort to extreme diet and exercise routines on their own. What they forget is that this is also the time for their growth and development and balanced nutrition is one of the key pillars at this stage. Teens think food intake is the one thing they can control for their weight. The Kerala girl clearly had an electrolyte imbalance which can lead to a sudden cardiac arrest and organ damage,” says Mukta Vasishta, consultant dietician, at Sir Ganga Ram City Hospital, Delhi. 

The girl likely didn’t realise that her extreme water-only dieting had pushed her into severe anorexia, a disorder causing her to vomit even the small amounts of food that she was given. 

What Is Water-Only Fasting? 

People on the internet are falsely advocating that consuming only water and no food helps in autophagy, a process when cells recycle and renew themselves, and thus regain their health. This is a myth. The fact is that no scientific literature has any evidence of this routine, which cannot be continued beyond a day or two anyway, as it accelerates weight loss.

Such trials have been conducted under medical supervision to ensure that the health of participants remains unaffected. However, this lack of scientific evidence hasn’t stopped people from adopting water fasting as an alternative diet fad and since it is an easy-to-follow routine, many fall for it, instead of following a proper diet, exercising or changing their lifestyle.

What Happens When You Follow A Water-Only Fasting Diet?

When you follow a water-only fasting diet, there are major deficiencies of both macro and micronutrients in the body. Your body may run low on electrolytes like sodium and potassium. A deficiency of these essential electrolytes disrupts nerve signals for key body functions, which can lead to irregular heartbeats, muscle weakness, confusion, seizures and cardiac arrest.

If you drink too much water, you may experience abnormally low levels of blood pressure. You could also develop water intoxication or hyponatremia due to this. Brain functioning also gets affected and your organs begin to shut down.

How To Help Teens Who Are Facing Body Image Issues?

The first step is to restore the diet with medical guidance. If for an extended period of time, a person consumes extreme calorie-restricted diets, it results in a refeeding syndrome. Even normal meals can feel like a calorie overload. There can be sudden and rapid metabolic changes that may lead to health complications like diarrhoea, vomiting and organ malfunction.

Therefore, we need to reintroduce the patient to food very slowly, beginning with smaller calorie counts, then going up to 800 calories and moving upwards gradually.

Also, it is essential that teens with body image issues and online addictions should be counselled by psychiatrists. Parents from this generation should also be vigilant and talk openly with their children about their issues.