Fad diets. The title sounds a little dismissive, right? The word fad brings to mind ideas or practices that don't stand the test of time for a variety of reasons ranging from overall inefficacy of the original claim to just... simply falling out of style. In any case, fad diets are a tool of the weight-loss industry (yes there is an industry that wants you to believe regardless your size you can always stand to lose more weight) to disguise relatively ineffective to potentially dangerous weight-loss means and most importantly to sell you product you very likely do not otherwise need.
I am sure we can all recognize some fad diets of yesteryear; a few of them are still practiced today but are by no means as wildly popular as they once were. I assume we are all familiar with names like the Atkins Diet, South Beach Diet, and numerous variants. However, did you know that nearly for as long as there have been means of advertisement there have been people wanting to convince you that if you just do some odd change to your diet that literally all of life's problems will melt away?
Some of the most popular fad diets of today include the Paleo Diet, Gluten-Free diet, Intermittent Fasting and the Raw Food Diet. While many of these diets hold great merit, be it including more whole grains, cutting down on excess processed carbs, added sugars and fats, or simply paying better attention to your body's natural cues, most all of them are restrictive and several cut out entire groups of extremely beneficial foods.
How can you begin to better recognize a fad diet for what it is? Generally speaking I would advise that if it has the word "diet" at the end of it, avoid it. This may be over-simplifying the issue but for many of us it is true. Not only that, but for many of us the key to healthful weight-loss or weight-maintenance is consuming more whole grains, less sugar and fat and working in 30-60 minutes of moderate physical activity each day. Anyway, if that isn't enough, here are some tips on what diets should be avoided:
I am sure a lot of this sounds quite jaded, and maybe it is to an extent. I am honestly very tired of seeing intelligent people who for whatever reason just don't feel good about themselves, or who genuinely need help losing weight, being taken advantage of by companies that want to profit from their desperation. When someone makes a claim that sounds too good to be true, remember this great quote by psuedoscience investigator and founder of the Society for Scientific Exploration, Marcello Truzzi, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
If you are considering radically altering your diet for whatever reason, I would strongly advise speaking to your primary care physician or a registered dietitian. Don't blindly trust some quack that Oprah popularized, or a gaggle of B-list celebrities running a talk show. Trust research, trust experts in the specific field you are looking in to.
Please, enjoy life, enjoy love, enjoy food!
Eat fearlessly.
I am sure we can all recognize some fad diets of yesteryear; a few of them are still practiced today but are by no means as wildly popular as they once were. I assume we are all familiar with names like the Atkins Diet, South Beach Diet, and numerous variants. However, did you know that nearly for as long as there have been means of advertisement there have been people wanting to convince you that if you just do some odd change to your diet that literally all of life's problems will melt away?
Some of the most popular fad diets of today include the Paleo Diet, Gluten-Free diet, Intermittent Fasting and the Raw Food Diet. While many of these diets hold great merit, be it including more whole grains, cutting down on excess processed carbs, added sugars and fats, or simply paying better attention to your body's natural cues, most all of them are restrictive and several cut out entire groups of extremely beneficial foods.
How can you begin to better recognize a fad diet for what it is? Generally speaking I would advise that if it has the word "diet" at the end of it, avoid it. This may be over-simplifying the issue but for many of us it is true. Not only that, but for many of us the key to healthful weight-loss or weight-maintenance is consuming more whole grains, less sugar and fat and working in 30-60 minutes of moderate physical activity each day. Anyway, if that isn't enough, here are some tips on what diets should be avoided:
- Restrictive diets: Unless you have spoken with a doctor specializing in nutrition, or a Registered Dietitian, do not ever practice diets that restrict calories to an extreme or that cut out entire food groups. Doing so can cause nutrient deficiencies, which is not good health whatsoever.
- "Miracle" claims, or the Good Old Snake Oil Salesman: Have you ever seen the ads that begin with "this one weird trick", "one old tip", or "miracle fat burner" and prod for you to click on the link? Often times these lead to products claiming miraculous results-- tens of pounds lost rapidly with little to no effort whatsoever. These ads are designed to play on desperation and likely over 99% of the time are based upon falsified claims, faulty research or no research at all. Avoid any diet or supplement that boasts extreme results in a short amount of time, because the only thing that will happen quickly is the separation of you from your hard-earned money.
- Pseudo-science or faith-based claims: This isn't a commentary on faith itself, rather it is a commentary on diets that ask you to just believe them that the diet will work; trust us, if you just have faith in this diet, it will eventually work, we promise. This is essentially the marketers way of saying "we don't really have any proof or evidence to provide you illustrating the efficacy of our claims, you just have to believe us." Sounds shady, right? You probably wouldn't buy a car you never test drove, or a house you've never been in, so why buy into a diet that doesn't provide substantial research when it all boils down to your health?
- Trademarks!: The TM next to a title means one thing: people are making a profit off of this item, idea or claim. You may say, but Katie, doctors make money off of their claims, so how can I trust them? This is true, doctors are paid for their work and indeed there are some doctors who likely sell-out their own conscience to make a fast buck. However, corporations stand to gain millions, even billions of dollars in profits from selling people un-researched, unregulated claims because it is easy to do, it isn't illegal, and there is very little potential for backlash. As long as some people lose some weight and correlate it to the product or fad they were trying at the time, these corporations will not be held responsible for false claims, and they know this.
I am sure a lot of this sounds quite jaded, and maybe it is to an extent. I am honestly very tired of seeing intelligent people who for whatever reason just don't feel good about themselves, or who genuinely need help losing weight, being taken advantage of by companies that want to profit from their desperation. When someone makes a claim that sounds too good to be true, remember this great quote by psuedoscience investigator and founder of the Society for Scientific Exploration, Marcello Truzzi, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
If you are considering radically altering your diet for whatever reason, I would strongly advise speaking to your primary care physician or a registered dietitian. Don't blindly trust some quack that Oprah popularized, or a gaggle of B-list celebrities running a talk show. Trust research, trust experts in the specific field you are looking in to.
Please, enjoy life, enjoy love, enjoy food!
Eat fearlessly.
Sources:
Atkins Diet:
http://www.atkins.com/Home.aspx
South Beach Diet
http://www.southbeachdiet.com/diet/
Diets Through History
http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20653382,00.html
The Paleo Diet
http://thepaleodiet.com/
The Fast Diet
http://thefastdiet.co.uk/
Best of Raw Food Diet
http://www.thebestofrawfood.com/
Snake Oil Supplements
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/snake-oil-supplements/
The Great and Powerful (Dr.) Oz, dissected in The New Yorker
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/01/29/the-great-and-powerful-dr-oz-dissected-in-the-new-yorker/
Society for Scientific Exploration
http://www.scientificexploration.org/
Atkins Diet:
http://www.atkins.com/Home.aspx
South Beach Diet
http://www.southbeachdiet.com/diet/
Diets Through History
http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20653382,00.html
The Paleo Diet
http://thepaleodiet.com/
The Fast Diet
http://thefastdiet.co.uk/
Best of Raw Food Diet
http://www.thebestofrawfood.com/
Snake Oil Supplements
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/snake-oil-supplements/
The Great and Powerful (Dr.) Oz, dissected in The New Yorker
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/01/29/the-great-and-powerful-dr-oz-dissected-in-the-new-yorker/
Society for Scientific Exploration
http://www.scientificexploration.org/