The so-called “Cotton Ball Diet” has been around about as long as cotton balls have been on the scene, although its popularity seemed to dry up sometime in the 1980s. Now, however, a new generation of girls and young women is being introduced to the practice thanks to a spate of recent videos appearing on YouTube and other Internet sites.

The clips depict 9-to-16-year-old girls demonstrating how to abide by the “diet” (if you’ll pardon the loose usage of the word). The method normally involves dipping up to five cotton balls into juice or a smoothie, and then swallowing them whole. The more hardcore slim-seekers forgo the liquid and just down the cotton balls dry. In either case, the cotton balls apparently swell up in the stomach, and adherents say it allows them to feel full without taking in calories.

For some who wish to be movie-star thin without the inconvenience of long-term lifestyle changes, it seems like a solution that offers the best of both worlds.

But the practice is dangerous. Most cotton balls actually are made not of cotton but bleached polyester fiber full of all kinds of chemicals. “[S]wallowing a synthetic cotton ball is like dipping your T-shirt in orange juice and eating it,” said Brandi Koskie, managing editor of the website Diets in Review. Koskie explained that anyone eating cotton balls not only risks suffering malnutrition, but also could choke or develop an obstruction in the intestinal tract. “Nothing good can come of this. Absolutely nothing,” Koskie said.

The Cotton Ball Diet is far from the first dangerous and extreme weight loss fad to come into vogue. Back in 2010, French magazine Grazia championed the “Air Diet” as the new “it” way to shed kilos. Before that, the Cigarette Diet and Sleeping Beauty Diet each had their day in the sun. Recent decades have also seen bursts of popularity for the Feeding Tube Diet, ear stapling, the Cookie Diet and, of course, the Tape Worm Diet.

Why are girls and young women going to these extreme and shocking measures? These trends are the result of a society obsessed with superficial beauty. Women and even girls face intense societal pressure to be thin, even if it has to come at the expense of health. The National Eating Disorder Association says that up to 60 percent of American girls in the 6 to 12 age range harbor anxiety over their body shape or size. Around 20 million women will suffer from some kind of “clinically significant” eating disorder at some point in their life.

The staggering number of women and girls suffering from these disorders shows that our society and our families desperately need to change.

“Beauty is vain,” the Holy Bible says. And Jesus Christ makes plain that He came so we “might have life” and “have it more abundantly.” The Apostle John wrote, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth” (3 John 2).

In these passages and many others, it is clear that God’s will is not for us to chase after vain beauty, but instead to lead lives of quality in every respect—including that of physical health. In the Holy Bible–His instruction manual for mankind—He gives definite laws and guidelines about how to do that—and there’s no mention of eating cotton balls. To understand some of the practical laws recorded in the Bible, read our article “Belly On, Belly Off.”