Weight loss and fad diets: why keto diet, Paleo diet and Atkins diet don’t work and may be bad for your health
- Fad diets have been around for decades, from the Hollywood diet in the 1930s to the Atkins diet in the ’90s and today’s Paleo diet
- Health experts don’t recommend fad diets for long-term weight loss; exercise and sensible eating are far better for you
Let’s be clear: extreme diets simply do not work for long-term weight loss and can be hazardous to your health. As Bob Wright, a health educator at Hilton Head Health Spa and Wellness resort in the US state of South Carolina notes: “If it sounds too good to be true, it is.”
The definition of a fad diet is any new diet that becomes briefly popular. They are defined by their strict rules, fervent adherents – if you meet a fad dieter you will know it, as it is all they will want to talk about – the use of supplements, and the promise of results that confound science.
Fad diets have been around since at least the 1930s, when low-calorie meal plans were all the rage among the inspirationally thin. That was the era of the “Hollywood Diet” and the “Grapefruit Diet” which encouraged its adherents to eat grapefruit with every meal – consequentially, half a grapefruit remains a signifier of healthy eating in commercials to this day.
An even earlier fad diet, the cigarette diet – pushed by cigarette companies – encouraged women to smoke cigarettes instead of eating confectionery. That gives you some idea of how much fad pushers have your health in mind.