A fad diet is a diet that is generally used only for a short time, similar to fads in fashion, without being a standard scientific dietary recommendation. They often make unreasonable claims for fast weight loss or health improvements, and as such are often considered a type of pseudoscientific diet.Whitney, Eleanor Noss; Rolfes, Sharon Rady; Crowe, Tim; Walsh, Adam. (2019). Understanding Nutrition. Cengage Learning Australia. pp. 321-325. Fad diets are usually not supported by clinical research and their health recommendations are not peer-reviewed, thereby leading to unsubstantiated statements about health and disease.
Generally, fad diets promise an assortment of desired changes requiring little effort, thus attracting the interest of consumers uneducated about whole-diet, whole-lifestyle changes necessary for sustainable health. Fad diets are often promoted with exaggerated claims, such as rapid weight loss of more than 1 kg/week, improving health by "detoxification", or even more dangerous claims achieved through highly restrictive and nutritionally unbalanced food choices leading to malnutrition or even eating non-food items, such as cotton wool. Highly restrictive fad diets should be avoided. At best, fad diets may offer novel and engaging ways to reduce caloric intake, but at worst, they may be unsustainable, medically unsuitable, or even dangerous. Dietitian advice should be preferred before attempting any diet.
Celebrity endorsements are used to promote fad diets, which may generate significant revenue for the creators of the diets through the sale of associated products. Regardless of their evidence base, or lack thereof, fad diets are common, with over 1,500 books published each year, and many consumers willing to pay into an industry worth $35 billion per year in the United States. About 14–15% of Americans declare having used a fad diet for short-term weight loss.
Description Definition There is no single definition of what a fad diet is, encompassing diverse diets with different approaches and evidence base, thus producing different outcomes, advantages, and disadvantages. Furthermore, labeling a diet as a fad is ever-changing, varying socially, culturally, and subjectively. However, a common definition lies in a diet promoting short-term changes instead of lifelong changes, and that common use (or lack thereof) has no association with a diet's effectiveness, nutritional soundness, or safety. The US Federal Trade Commission defines fad diets as those that are highly restrictive and promote energy-dense foods that are often poor in nutrients.
Types of fad diets Although fad diets are ever-changing, most can be categorized in general groups: Physical or physiological testing, such as applied kinesiology and blood group analysis Low calorie diets: Food-specific diets, which encourage eating large amounts of a single food, such as the cabbage soup diet High-fiber, low-calorie diets, which often prescribe double the normal amount of dietary fiber Liquid diets, such as SlimFast meal replacement drinks Fasting Adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate diets, such as the Atkins diet, which was introduced in the 1970s
Fad diets are generally restrictive, and are characterized by promises of fast weight loss or great physical health (notably by "detoxification"), and which are not grounded in sound science.
Some fad diets, such as diets purporting to be alternative cancer treatments, promise health effects other than weight loss.
Commercial weight management organizations, such as Weight Watchers, were inappropriately associated with fad diets in the past.
Several factors can encourage a person to start a fad diet, such as sociocultural peer pressure on body image, reduced self-esteem, and persuasion by media.
Bad diets Although not all fad diets are inherently detrimental to health, there are "red flags" of bad dietary advice, such as: Promising rapid weight loss of more than per week or other extraordinary claims that are "too good to be true" Being nutritionally imbalanced, or highly restrictive, forbidding entire food groups, or even allowing one food or food type. In the most extreme form, they may claim that humans can survive without eating Recommending eating food in a specific order or combination, sometimes based on physiological properties, such as genetics or blood type Recommending specific foods purported to be detoxing or to "burn" fat Promises a one-size-fits-all "magic bullet with little to no effort, combined with other healthy lifestyle changes (exercise, for example) Based on anecdotal testimonials, such as personal success stories, instead of medical evidence from randomized controlled trials
Health claims evaluations Fad diets have variable results, as these include different diets. They tend to result in short-term weight loss, but afterwards, the weight is usually regained.
The restrictive approach, regardless of whether the diet prescribes eating large amounts of high-fiber vegetables, no grains, or no solid foods, tend to be nutritionally unsound, and can cause serious health problems if followed for more than a few days.
A considerable disadvantage of fad diets is that they encourage the notion of a diet as a short-term behavior, instead of a sustainable lifelong change. Indeed, fad diets often fail to re-educate dieters about healthy nutrition or portion control, and under-emphasize efforts that dieters cannot establish long-term maintenance of their desired weight, even if that weight is achieved in the short-term. Several diets are also unsustainable in the long-term, and thus dieters revert to old habits after deprivation of some foods which may lead to binge eating. Fad diets generally fail to address the causes of poor nutrition habits, and thus are unlikely to change the underlying behavior and the long-term outcomes.
Some fad diets are associated with increased risks of cardiovascular diseases, kidney stones, and mental disorders, such as eating disorders, depression, and dental risks. For instance, long-term low-carbohydrate high-fat diets are associated with increased cardiac and non-cardiac mortality. Teenagers following fad diets are at risk of permanently stunted growth.
Some fad diets do provide short-term and long-term results for individuals with specific illnesses, such as obesity or epilepsy. Very-low-calorie diets, also known as crash diets, are efficient for liver fat reduction and weight loss before bariatric surgery. Low-calorie and very-low-calorie diets may produce initially faster weight loss within the first weeks of starting compared to other diets, but this superficially faster loss is due to glycogen depletion and water loss in the lean body mass, and regained quickly afterward.
Diet success in weight loss and possible health effects is most predicted by adherence and negative energy balance, regardless of the diet type. Fad diets, with their common use and variety, may be useful to introduce obese individuals via a dietary plan tailored to their food preferences and lifestyle into long-term dietary and lifestyle changes under supervision by nutrition professionals. Various diets aiming at gentle caloric restriction under supervision, including commercial, fad, and standard care diets, have shown considerable and comparable success and safety, both in the short-term and long-term. Comprehensive diet programs are more effective than dieting without guidance. According to David L. Katz, "efforts to improve public health through diet are forestalled not for want of knowledge about the optimal feeding of Homo sapiens but for distractions associated with exaggerated claims, and our failure to convert what we reliably know into what we routinely do."
There is a commonly claimed figure that "95% of dieters regain their weight after a few years", but this is "clinical lore" based on a 1953 primary study, with newer evidence demonstrating long-term weight loss after dieting under supervision. A 2007 review found that one-third to two-thirds of dieters had slight to no long-term weight loss based on lesser quality trials, supporting Health at Every Size according to its authors. A 2017 review reported that extended calorie restriction suppresses overall and specific food cravings.
Healthy diets
Improving dietary habits is a societal issue that should be considered when preparing national policies, according to the World Health Organization, which proposes a set of recommendations for a healthy diet: Achieve an energy balance and maintain a healthy weight. Promote the consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole-grains, nuts, seeds, peas, beans, legumes, herbs, and spices. Limit sweets and sugar. Limit salt from all sources and ensure salt is iodized. Limit total fat consumption and in particular replace saturated fats by unsaturated fats as much as possible, and eliminate trans-fatty acids.
The 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans implement these recommendations in the US, as follows: Follow a lifelong healthy eating pattern. Focus on variety, nutrient density, and quantity. Limit calories from added sugars and saturated fats. Reduce sodium intake. Prefer healthier food and beverage choices, such as nutrient-dense foods. These preferences should account for cultural and personal preferences to make application easier. Community support of healthy eating patterns for everyone.
Contrary to the previous editions, which mainly focused on dietary components such as food groups and nutrients, the US guidelines offer a more global approach focusing on eating patterns and nutrients characteristics as "people do not eat food groups and nutrients in isolation but rather in combination, and the totality of the diet forms an overall eating pattern". Indeed, "the components of the eating pattern can have interactive and potentially cumulative effects on health", noting that "these patterns can be tailored to an individual's personal preferences, enabling Americans to choose the diet that is right for them".
Several diets have shown sufficient evidence of safety and constant beneficial effects to be recommended. These include the DASH diet for anyone, but especially for cardiac risk prevention in obesity and diabetes, the Mediterranean diet with similar indications, the U.S. Department of Agriculture "MyPlate" for healthy diet guidelines, and the ketogenic diet for reducing risk of seizures in people with epilepsy.
History
Ancient history The word "diet" comes from the Greek diaita, which described a whole lifestyle, including mental and physical, rather than a narrow weight-loss regimen. The Greek and Roman physicians considered that how a body functioned was largely dependent on the foods eaten, and that different foods could affect people in different ways.
Western medical science at the time was founded on diatetica, the "fundamental healing therapy of a regimen of certain foods". Overweight or being too slim were seen as signs of an unhealthy body, with an imbalance of its four essential "humours" (black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm).
The earliest diet known is from one of the oldest surviving medical documents, the Ebers papyrus (circa 1550 BC), which described a recipe for an antidiabetic diet of wheat germ and okra. An early dietary fad is known from about 500–400 BC, when athletes and warriors consumed deer livers and lion hearts, thinking these products would impart benefits such as bravery, speed, or strength.