Fad Diets Make Obesity Crisis Worse

Posted on Nov 23rd 2009 4:00PM by Deborah Dunham

You know fad diets don't work when it comes to reaching long-term weight loss goals. But did you also know they can actually make you fatter?

Doctors now warn that celebrity diets are contributing to the obesity epidemic. Think Lemonade, Grapefruit, Tiger, Mayo Clinic, Apple and Cabbage Soup. All of these so-called diets may help you lose weight in the beginning, but can you really stick with them? Only if you don't like food.

Most of these diets have the same thing in common -- they place heavy restrictions on what you can eat. Take the Lemonade Diet (also known as the Master Cleanse) for instance. You mix up a batch of "lemonade" with lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper and water. With six to 12 glasses allowed each day (no other food), this diet is likely to leave you a little sour. The Cabbage Soup Diet allows you to eat as much of its soup that you want each day along with fruits and vegetables, but it neglects other important food groups which can lead to nutritional deficiencies.

Even if you can withstand one of these diets for a few days or weeks, the major issue is their lack of slimming power over the long haul. "Eating should be enjoyable. These diets are so monotonous and boring that it's almost impossible to stay on them for long periods," states the American Heart Association.

In addition to dishing out very little food, some of these fad diets can have you dishing out a lot of hard-earned cash. For example, the Hollywood Diet charges $12.95 for a 16-ounce bottle of juice which contains seemingly inexpensive ingredients like fruit and tea. The sad part is, Americans spend an average of $46 billion a year on diet products and self-help books and 97 percent of them regain the weight within five years.

In a speech at the Gastro 2009 Conference, Professor Chris Hawkey, President of The British Society of Gastroenterology suggested avoiding popular fad diets, such as the Tiger Diet, which promotes eating only uncooked food (Mel Gibson is reportedly a fan), and the Hallelujah Diet, which only allows eating from fruit and seed bearing trees depicted in the Bible. "What's important is to recognize that despite the popularity of fad diets, we are losing a grip on the fight with obesity. We need to do away with quirky diets and get people to realize what will keep them healthy in the long run."

In the end, crash diets will only cause you to crash and burn. Eating less and exercising more are the only tried and true methods. All the more reason to skip the second piece of pie on Thanksgiving and sign up for your local Turkey Trot instead.

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

u262f 11-23-2009 @ 5:31PM

Eating less as a general goal doesn't work. In my book, that also counts a fad diet, and it results in unhealthy attitudes towards food. Attempts to eat less are very likely to result in people eating more.

The problem is not so much that people need to eat "less" but that we need to eat "better". Instead of counting calories (or fats or carbs or whatever), make the calories count. The FDA wasn't wrong when it said that we need a "balanced" diet. They were only wrong about where that balance is and what needs to be balanced - because each person needs a different balance, and that balance shifts as their lives change.

Also, it's useful to keep in mind that exercise isn't about weight. It's about health and fitness. Keep exercising because it's still making you healthier and more fit even if you're not losing any weight. Weight and health aren't as interchangeable as people seem to think. Corpses can get very thin and light (especially once all the flesh has decomposed off, leaving the skeleton), but they're not at all healthy.

LG 11-24-2009 @ 10:43AM

I totally agree with your comments on weight and health and that fact that we should be eating better, rather than eating less.

One small point I would make is that counting calories isn't necessarily a bad thing, unless it becomes disordered. There's a tendency when counting to continually strive to eat less and less, which isn't good. But counting can be very educational - there are times when I'd input a recipe I'd made, thinking it would be very high calories and discover it was actually quite low, and vice versa. There are so many people in this country who really have no idea about what foods are high and low in calories (for instance, the people on diets who slather their salads with a cup of dressing, not realizing it's adding just as many calories as a full meal), that counting calories can sometimes be beneficial.

u262f 11-24-2009 @ 11:13AM

The problem with counting calories is that calories can be very deceptive. Many low-calorie items are low in calories because they are even lower in nutrition. For example, whole grains have more calories and fat than processed, refined grains, but the whole grains have more nutrition per calorie as well, so it's worth it to get whole grains instead of processed. I think it can be detrimental for people to count calories without taking nutrition density into account. Another example is fruit vs. non-caloric sugar substitutes. Whole fruit have calories, and sugar substitutes have none, but because whole fruits have various nutrition to go with those calories, it's worth having the fruit to satisfy a sweet tooth than having a bag of substitute sugars.

Kellie 11-24-2009 @ 11:07AM

Everyone should read the book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes. You should learn about the lies certain scientists and our government has been telling us all of these years, and how the AHA and NIH (among others) have knowingly ignored evidence because they want to save face and money. To get a sample of what I'm saying, search for and read the article from Men's Health titled "What If Bad Fat Is Actually Good For You". Then read the book I suggested. The book will explain all the details. It is not a diet "how to" book.