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A fad diet is a
diet
Diet may refer to:
Food
* Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group
* Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake
** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...
that becomes popular for a short time, similar to
fads in
fashion
Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion i ...
, without being a standard dietary recommendation, and often making unreasonable claims for fast weight loss or health improvements.
There is no single definition of what is a fad diet. The term fad diet encompasses a variety of diets with different approaches and
evidence bases, and thus different outcomes, advantages, and disadvantages.
Generally, fad diets promise an assortment of short-term changes requiring little to no effort; attracting the interests of uneducated consumers about whole-diet, whole-lifestyle changes necessary for sustainable health benefices. Fad diets are often promoted with exaggerated claims, such as rapid weight loss
Weight loss, in the context of medicine, health, or physical fitness, refers to a reduction of the total body mass, by a mean loss of fluid, body fat ( adipose tissue), or lean mass (namely bone mineral deposits, muscle, tendon, and other co ...
of more than 1 kg/week, improving health by "detoxification", or even dangerous claims, such as highly restrictive and nutritionally unbalanced food choices leading to malnutrition
Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues ...
or eating non-food items like 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 medically unsuitable to the individual, unsustainable, or even dangerous. Dietitian advice should be preferred before attempting any diet.
Celebrity endorsement
Celebrity branding or celebrity endorsement is a form of advertising campaign or marketing strategy which uses a celebrity's fame or social status to promote a product, brand or service, or to raise awareness about an issue. Marketers use celebr ...
s are frequently used to promote fad diets, which may generate significant revenue
In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business.
Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive reven ...
for the creators of the diets through the sale of associated products. Regardless of their evidence base, or lack thereof, fad diets are extremely popular, with over 1500 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% Americans declare having used a fad diet for short-term weight loss.
Although fad diets may have a negative connotation for health professionals,[ some have scientific evidences and therapeutic applications, such as the ]ketogenic diet
The ketogenic diet is a high- fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate dietary therapy that in conventional medicine is used mainly to treat hard-to-control (refractory) epilepsy in children. The diet forces the body to burn fats rather than ca ...
for epilepsy
Epilepsy is a group of non-communicable neurological disorders characterized by recurrent epileptic seizures. Epileptic seizures can vary from brief and nearly undetectable periods to long periods of vigorous shaking due to abnormal electrica ...
or caloric restriction
Calorie restriction (caloric restriction or energy restriction) is a dietary regimen that reduces intake of energy from caloric foods & beverages without incurring malnutrition. "Reduce" can be defined relative to the subject's previous intake be ...
and the Mediterranean diet
The Mediterranean diet is a diet inspired by the eating habits of people who live near the Mediterranean Sea. When initially formulated in the 1960s, it drew on the cuisines of Greece, Italy, France and Spain. In decades since, it has also incor ...
for obesity
Obesity is a medical condition, sometimes considered a disease, in which excess body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it may negatively affect health. People are classified as obese when their body mass index (BMI)—a person's ...
and diabetes
Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ...
, and several producing similar benefits to commercial diets or standard care when done under professional supervision.
Description
Definition
There is no single definition of what is a fad diet, encompassing a variety of diets with different approaches and evidence base, and thus different outcomes, advantages, and disadvantages. Furthermore, labeling a diet as a fad is ever-changing, varying socially, culturally, timely, and subjectively. However, a common definition lies in the popularity of a diet promoting short-term changes instead of lifelong changes, and that popularity (or lack thereof) has no association with a diet's effectiveness, nutritional soundness, or safety. The Federal Trade Commission defines fad diets as those that are highly restrictive and promoting energy dense foods that are often poor in nutrients.
Types of fad diets
Although fad diets are ever-changing, most can be categorized in these 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
SlimFast is an American company headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida that markets an eponymous brand of shakes, bars, snacks, packaged meals, and other dietary supplement foods sold in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, ...
meal replacement
A meal replacement is a drink, bar, soup, etc. intended as a substitute for a solid food, usually with controlled quantities of calories and nutrients. Some drinks come in powdered form or pre-mixed health shakes that can be cheaper than solid fo ...
drinks
** Fasting
Fasting is the abstention from eating and sometimes drinking. From a purely physiological context, "fasting" may refer to the metabolic status of a person who has not eaten overnight (see " Breakfast"), or to the metabolic state achieved after ...
* High-protein, low-carbohydrate diets, such as the Atkins diet
The Atkins diet is a low-carbohydrate fad diet devised by Robert Atkins in the 1970s, marketed with claims that carbohydrate restriction is crucial to weight loss and that the diet offered "a high calorie way to stay thin forever".
The diet be ...
, which first became popular in the 1970s
Fad diets are generally restrictive, and are characterized by promises of fast weight loss or great physical health (notably by "detoxification
Detoxification or detoxication (detox for short) is the physiological or medicinal removal of toxic substances from a living organism, including the human body, which is mainly carried out by the liver. Additionally, it can refer to the period of ...
"), and which are not grounded in sound science.
Some fad diets, such as diets purporting to be alternative cancer treatments, promise health benefits other than weight loss.
Commercial weight management organizations (CMWOs), such as Weight Watchers, were inappropriately associated with fad diets in the past.
Several factors can cause someone to start a fad diet, such as socio-cultural peer pressure on body image and self-esteem, including the effect of media, and economical cost of comprehensive programs.
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 such as more than 1 kg/week (2 lb/week) or other extraordinary claims that are "too good to be true"
* Being nutritionally imbalanced, or highly restrictive, forbidding entire food groups, or even only allowing one food or food type. In the most extreme form, they may claim that humans can survive without eating or by having liquid meals only or by consuming non-food items such as cotton wool
* 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, without including or encouraging long-term whole dietary changes nor physical exercise tailored to the specific needs of the individual
* Based on anecdotal testimonials such as personal success stories, instead of medical evidence from randomized tests by commercial weight management organizations to be approved.
Health claims evaluations
Fad diets have variable results as these include a variety of different diets. They tend to result in short-term weight loss, but afterwards, the weight is often 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 a healthy nutrition, portion control and under-emphasize efforts and especially physical activity, so that followers cannot acquire the skills and knowledge they need for 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
Binge eating is a pattern of disordered eating which consists of episodes of uncontrollable eating. It is a common symptom of eating disorders such as binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa. During such binges, a person rapidly consumes an ex ...
. 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 and mental disorders such as eating disorders and 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
Stunted growth is a reduced growth rate in human development. It is a primary manifestation of malnutrition (or more precisely undernutrition) and recurrent infections, such as diarrhea and helminthiasis, in early childhood and even before birth ...
.
Some fad diets do however 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 1–2 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
Lean body mass (LBM), sometimes conflated with ''fat-free mass'', is a component of body composition. Fat free mass (FFM) is calculated by subtracting body fat weight from total body weight: total body weight is lean plus fat. In equations:
:LBM&n ...
and regained quickly afterward.
Diet success in weight loss and health benefits is most predicted by adherence and negative energy balance, regardless of the diet type. Fad diets, with their popularity 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. Indeed, a wide variety of 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 a "clinical lore" based on a 1953 primary study, with newer evidence demonstrating long-term weight loss after dieting under supervision, although 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 the Health at Every Size according to its authors. A 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
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...
. They propose 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, and nuts.
* 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 The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) provide nutritional advice for Americans who are healthy or who are at risk for chronic disease but do not currently have chronic disease. The Guidelines are published every five years by the US Department ...
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 latest 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
The DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) is a dietary pattern promoted by the U.S.-based National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Heal ...
for anyone but especially for cardiac risk prevention in obesity and diabetes, the Mediterranean diet
The Mediterranean diet is a diet inspired by the eating habits of people who live near the Mediterranean Sea. When initially formulated in the 1960s, it drew on the cuisines of Greece, Italy, France and Spain. In decades since, it has also incor ...
with similar indications, the U.S. Department of Agriculture " MyPlate" for healthy diet guidelines, and the ketogenic diet
The ketogenic diet is a high- fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate dietary therapy that in conventional medicine is used mainly to treat hard-to-control (refractory) epilepsy in children. The diet forces the body to burn fats rather than ca ...
for reducing risk of seizures in people who have 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 way.
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 the oldest surviving medical document, the Ebers papyrus (circa 1550 BC), which described a recipe for an antidiabetic diet of wheat germ
Cereal germ or Wheat germ:
The germ of a cereal is the reproductive part that germinates to grow into a plant; it is the embryo of the seed. Along with bran, germ is often a by-product of the milling that produces refined grain products ...
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.
In the ''Corpus Hippocraticum'', Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history o ...
, a Greek philosopher and physician c. 460–370 BC, describe his views on human health, as being primarily influenced by alimentation and the environment we inhabit. He thought that the underlying principles of health were food and exercise, what he called "work", and that a high food intake needed a lot of hard work to be properly assimilated. A failure to balance work and food intake would upset the body's metabolism and incur diseases. As he wrote: "Man cannot live healthily on food without a certain amount of exercise". He thought that changes in food intake should be made progressively to avoid upsetting the body. He made several recommendations, some of which being: walking or running after eating, wrestling, avoiding drinks outside of meals, dry foods for obese people, never missing a breakfast and eat only just one main meal a day, bathing in only lukewarm water, avoiding sex, and the more dangerous "induction of vomiting", which he considered particularly beneficial. Nowadays, these advices seem mixed, some sensible, others inadvisable or even dangerous, but they made sense at the time given the contemporary knowledge and practices. For example, induced vomiting
Vomiting (also known as emesis and throwing up) is the involuntary, forceful expulsion of the contents of one's stomach through the mouth and sometimes the nose.
Vomiting can be the result of ailments like food poisoning, gastroenteri ...
was quite popular, almost an art form. The importance of foods was further established by one of his followers, who became extremely influential, the Greek physician Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be one ...
(129 – ca. 216 AD), with his work ''On the Power of Foods'', where he claimed that good doctors should also be good cooks, and provided several recipes.
In the classical world, what foods were eaten, and how much, played an important role in ethical, philosophical, and political teachings and thinking, centered on the ideas of luxury and corruption. Food was for sustenance alone, overindulging was morally and physically bad, at least a manifestation of a lack of self-control, but at worst leading to further passions and greed of other luxuries.
19th century
Fad diets as we know them really started during the Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
in the 19th century. A competitive market for "healthy diets" arose in the 19th-century developed world, as migration and industrialization and commodification of food supplies began eroding adherence to traditional ethno-cultural diets, and the health consequences of pleasure-based diets were becoming apparent. As Matt Fitzgerald describes it:
Many fad diets, at the time called "foodie", were promoted during the 19th century.
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
was obsessed with his appearance, as he had a "morbid propensity to fatten". He tried several diets, such as his favorite meal of biscuits and soda water, and others which he devised, such as the "vinegar and water diet" in the 1820s, which was very popular at the time, and involved drinking water with apple cider vinegar. He would cycle perpetually between self starvation, measurements, and binge eating. His influence was such that he was accused of encouraging melancholia and emotional volatility on Romantic youth, making girls "sicken and waste away". Indeed, according to Byron, "a woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and champagne, the only truly feminine and becoming viands". His views on women's diets and appearances worried his contemporaries, such as the American physician George Miller Beard, who fretted that young ladies may live their growing girlhood in semi-starvation because of their fears of "incurring the horror of disciples of Lord Byron".
In 1825, Jean Brillat-Savarin wrote about a low carbohydrate diet and focusing on chewing and swallowing to better taste food and supposedly eat less. This idea would later reappear in 1903 under the name of "Fletcherizing", derived from its author's name Horace Fletcher
Horace Fletcher (August 10, 1849 – January 13, 1919) was an American food faddist who earned the nickname "The Great Masticator" for his argument that food should be chewed thoroughly until liquefied before swallowing: "Nature will castigate ...
, "a self-taught nutritionist". Fletcher promoted chewing all food until it was thoroughly mixed with saliva, to the point that it was swallowed in a liquid state.
"Banting" or "to bant" became a highly popular synonym of dieting in 1863, when William Banting published "A Letter on Corpulence", which detailed the first low-carbohydrate diet
Low-carbohydrate diets restrict carbohydrate consumption relative to the average diet. Foods high in carbohydrates (e.g., sugar, bread, pasta) are limited, and replaced with foods containing a higher percentage of fat and protein (e.g., meat, ...
, which he followed from Dr. William Harvey, a surgeon known for a starch- and sugar-free diet treatment for diabetes. He immediately lost weight, from 202 to 156 pounds eventually. Banting is credited for writing the first diet book, which at his death in 1878 sold more than 58,000 copies over a total of 12 editions published between 1863 and 1902. Although the 2500 copies of the first and second editions were printed at his expenses and distributed for free, in the hopes of "benefitting to the working-class people", he sold later copies.
Around the same time, Sylvester Graham, of Graham cracker
A graham cracker (pronounced or in America) is a sweet flavored cracker made with graham flour that originated in the United States in the mid-19th century, with commercial development from about 1880. It is eaten as a snack food, usually ho ...
fame, is often given credit for creating the first fad diet in the 1830s and is considered the father of all modern diets. The diet recognized the importance of whole grains food. Designed from a religious motivation, Graham promoted a raw-food vegetarian diet that was lower in salt and fat, emphasizing an anti-industrial, anti-medical "simpler" or "natural" lifestyle, opposing the meat and other rich, calorie-dense foods produced in great quantities in the industrial era, declaring them "sinful". In 1830, he was appointed a general agent of the Pennsylvanian Temperance Society. During his time there, and due to his history, and inspired by the French vitalist school of medicine, he thought nutrition had moral as well as physical qualities, and viewed any desire for food or drink not due to necessity (stark hunger or thirst) to be depravation. Consequently, he viewed gluttony as the debilitating consequence of an unhealthy urge. He was determined to fight against what he perceived as nutritional "debauchery" and gluttony. He became a controversial figure, an evangelical New England preacher and speaker, with his spartan views on nutrition at a time where Americans' diets were primarily made of meat and white bread, by advocating adamantly in favor of raw vegetarian food and whole-grain food, authorizing but limiting meat, and forbidding highly refined or commercially baked white bread. He also described the use of corsets as "disfiguring" and advocated loose, comfortable clothing, which further attracted women to his precepts. After his death in 1851, his followers, dubbed "Grahamites", most of them being women but also including famous men such as John Harvey Kellogg
John Harvey Kellogg (February 26, 1852 – December 14, 1943) was an American medical doctor, nutritionist, inventor, health activist, eugenicist, and businessman. He was the director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. The ...
of cornflakes fame, continued to advocate vegetarianism, temperance, and bran bread. Graham's ideas proved to have a lasting influence on American diet, as the per capita meat consumption dropped gradually in the subsequent years, whereas vegetable consumption increased and Americans started to eat more balanced diets. Graham's diet legacy continued in the 20th with another diet philosophy by Bernarr Macfadden
Bernarr Macfadden (born Bernard Adolphus McFadden, August 16, 1868 – October 12, 1955) was an American proponent of physical culture, a combination of bodybuilding with nutritional and health theories. He founded the long-running magazine pu ...
, who relentlessly promoted a dieting philosophy named "physical culture
Physical culture, also known as Body culture, is a health and strength training movement that originated during the 19th century in Germany, the UK and the US.
Origins
The physical culture movement in the United States during the 19th century ...
", the idea that nearly all diseases were caused by toxins in the blood from poor diet and lack of exercise, and that nearly all diseases could be cured through fasting
Fasting is the abstention from eating and sometimes drinking. From a purely physiological context, "fasting" may refer to the metabolic status of a person who has not eaten overnight (see " Breakfast"), or to the metabolic state achieved after ...
, eating the correct foods, and physical exercise. Macfadden was one of the most effective promoter of diets in history, as he is believed by historians to be largely at the root of 20th and 21st century health and fitness practices in America.
The 19th century also saw the first and one of the most dangerous fad diet pills, with the marketing of arsenic pills for weight loss, which not only did not work, but which dieters often consumed more quantity than the prescribed dosage. Some diet hoaxes also appeared, such as the tapeworms diet, where the dieters would purportedly willfully ingest tapeworms in the hopes they would reach maturity in the intestines and absorb food, until the dieter attains the weight loss goal and consumes an anti-parasitic pill to kill and hopefully excrete the worms, if the dieter was lucky enough to not experience gastric obstruction.
20th century
The concept calorie restriction
Calorie restriction (caloric restriction or energy restriction) is a dietary regimen that reduces intake of energy from caloric foods & beverages without incurring malnutrition. "Reduce" can be defined relative to the subject's previous intake b ...
appeared under the name of "calorie counting" in the 1917 book "Diet and Health, With Key to the Calories" by Lulu Hunt Peters
Lulu Hunt Peters (1873–1930) was an American doctor and author who wrote a featured newspaper column entitled ''Diet and Health'', which she followed up with a best-selling book, ''Diet & Health: With Key to the Calories''. She was the first pe ...
.
Other fad diets appeared in the 1930s. The grapefruit diet was a low-calorie plan, which became popular and known as the "Hollywood diet", and involved eating grapefruit or its juice with other items such as toast or eggs, totaling about 500 calories per day.[Addison, Heather. (2003). ''Hollywood and the Rise of Physical Culture''. Routledge. p. 39. ] Such liquid diet
A liquid diet is a diet that mostly consists of liquids, or soft "foods" that melt at room temperature (such as ice cream). A liquid diet usually helps provide sufficient hydration, helps maintain electrolyte balance, and is often prescribed fo ...
s, cleanses and detox diet
Detoxification (often shortened to detox and sometimes called body cleansing) is a type of alternative-medicine treatment which aims to rid the body of unspecified "toxins" – substances that proponents claim accumulate in the body over ...
s would prove popular over the following decades with the Master Cleanse
Master Cleanse (also called the lemonade diet or lemon detox diet) is a modified juice fast that permits no food, substituting tea and lemonade made with maple syrup and cayenne pepper. The diet was developed by Stanley Burroughs, who initially ...
or Lemonade Diet in 1941 and Last Chance Diet in 1976. Around the same time, in 1925, Lucky Strike
Lucky Strike is an American brand of cigarettes owned by the British American Tobacco group. Individual cigarettes of the brand are often referred to colloquially as "Luckies." Throughout their 150 year history, Lucky Strike has had fluctuating ...
launched the "cigarette diet", relying on the appetite suppressing effect of nicotine, with the famous marketing slogan "Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet". The use of amphetamines, initially designed to treat narcolepsy, skyrocketed when doctors began prescribing them for appetite suppression and the treatment of depression, becoming a high success in the diet industry. Despite the American Medical Association
The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016.
The AMA's sta ...
opposing this use of amphetamines as early as 1943 due to problems of addiction, doctors continued to prescribe them, in addition to barbiturates to reduce the addiction cravings. The first liquid protein diet appeared also in the 1930s with the marketing of the "Dr. Stoll's Aid".
In 1950, another liquid diet appears, the "cabbage soup diet", highly restrictive but promising great weight loss in the first week, at the expense of causing flatulence. Later, and although it did not become a fad for another generation, the Zen macrobiotic diet was developed by the Japanese philosopher George Ohsawa, purporting a "yin and yang of food" to help maintain the body's balance, and proposing a grain-heavy diet composed of 50–60% of whole grains (e.g., brown rice), discouraging refined or processed food and certain cooking techniques and ustensils.
Bernarr Macfadden was another major figure of dieting in the 1950s, taking the legacy of Graham. He grew in a difficult environment. At age 11, both of his parents were deceased, his father from alcoholism, his mother from tuberculosis, and suffered from several illnesses himself. He later went on to live in a farm, which fortified his health, and studied human physiology, diet, and nutrition. Due to his history, and largely influenced by Graham, he became convinced that all health issues were due to nutrition. He advocated a similar diet, and regular fasting in addition. His demise happened as a consequence of his extreme devotion to his own ideas: since he was convinced fasting could cure any ailment, he tried to treat a urinary tract blockage he developed in 1955 by fasting, which only caused emaciation which no doctor could undo.
Other notable food faddists of this era include Paul Bragg
Paul Chappuis Bragg (February 6, 1895 – December 7, 1976) was an American alternative health food advocate and fitness enthusiast. Bragg's mentor was Bernarr Macfadden. He wrote on subjects such as Detoxification (alternative medicine), die ...
, Adelle Davis
Adelle Davis (25 February 1904 – 31 May 1974) was an American writer and nutritionist, considered "the most famous nutritionist in the early to mid-20th century." She was an advocate for improved health through better nutrition. She wrote an e ...
, and J. I. Rodale
Jerome Irving Rodale (; August 16, 1898 – June 8, 1971) was a publisher, editor, and author who founded Rodale, Inc. in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, and The Rodale Institute, formerly the Soil Health Foundation.
Rodale was an early advocate of sustai ...
.
In 1961, Jean Nidetch
Jean Evelyn Nidetch (née Slutsky, October 12, 1923 – April 29, 2015) was an American business entrepreneur who was the founder of the Weight Watchers organization.
Early life
Jean Nidetch was born on October 12, 1923 in the New York City boro ...
founded the Weight Watchers. In 1970, the "sleeping beauty diet", using sedative pills to avoid eating, became popular. Slim Fast
SlimFast is an American company headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida that markets an eponymous brand of shakes, bars, snacks, packaged meals, and other dietary supplement foods sold in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, ...
appeared in 1977, claimed as a "super diet" by having shakes for breakfast and lunch. In 1985, Fit for Life
''Fit for Life'' is a diet and lifestyle book series stemming from the principles of orthopathy. It is promoted mainly by the American writers Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. The ''Fit for Life'' book series describes a fad diet which specifies ea ...
promotes a diet forbidding complex carbohydrates and proteins in the same meal. In 1992, 1995, and 2003, the Atkins diet
The Atkins diet is a low-carbohydrate fad diet devised by Robert Atkins in the 1970s, marketed with claims that carbohydrate restriction is crucial to weight loss and that the diet offered "a high calorie way to stay thin forever".
The diet be ...
, Zone diet
The Zone diet is a fad diet emphasizing low-carbohydrate consumption. It was created by Barry Sears, an American biochemist.Baron M. Fighting obesity Part 1: Review of popular low-carb diets. Health Care Food Nutr Focus. 2004 Oct;21(10):1, 3-6, 1 ...
and South Beach Diets appear successively. The Atkins diet has been described as "one of the most popular fad diets in the United States".
In 1997, the American Heart Association (AHA) "declares war on fad diets ..to inform the public of misleading weight loss claims".
21st century
During the early 2000s, the Paleolithic diet
The Paleolithic diet, Paleo diet, caveman diet, or stone-age diet is a modern fad diet consisting of foods thought by its proponents to mirror those eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era.
The diet avoids processed food and typically incl ...
was popularized by Loren Cordain
Loren Cordain (born October 24, 1950) is an American scientist who specializes in the fields of nutrition and exercise physiology. He is notable as an advocate of the Paleolithic diet.
Education
Loren Cordain obtained a B.S. in Health Sciences ...
and has attracted a largely internet-based following on forums and social media. This modern fad diet consists of foods thought to mirror those eaten during the Paleolithic era.
The very dangerous cotton ball diet
The cotton ball diet is a fad diet that involves consuming cotton balls dipped in liquids such as juices or smoothies. The cotton is intended to make a person's stomach feel full without them gaining weight. The diet has been repeatedly condemned ...
surfaced in 2013, prompting dieters to eat up to five cotton balls at a time to lower hunger, leading to intestinal occlusion and potentially death. Aseem Malhotra
Aseem Malhotra is a British cardiologist, public health campaigner, author, and advocate against the use of COVID vaccines. He campaigns for people to reduce sugar in their diet, promotes a low-carb and high-fat diet, and encourages the reduct ...
has promoted a low-carbohydrate fad diet known as the Pioppi diet. It was named by the British Dietetic Association
The British Dietetic Association (BDA) is a professional association and trade union for dietitians in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1936 and became a certified union in 1982: it is affiliated to the Trades Union Congress and the Scott ...
as one of the "top 5 worst celeb diets to avoid in 2018".
A recent fad diet promoted on social media platforms is the carnivore diet that involves eating only animal products. There is no clinical evidence that the carnivore diet provides any health benefits. Other recent fad diets include the lectin-free diet
The Lectin-free diet (also known as the Plant Paradox diet) is a fad diet promoted with the false claim that avoiding all foods that contain high amounts of lectins will prevent and cure disease.
There is no clinical evidence that a lectin-fr ...
that has been promoted by Steven Gundry
Steven R. Gundry (born July 11, 1950) is an American physician and low-carbohydrate diet author. He is a former cardiac surgeon and cardiac surgery researcher, who currently runs his own experimental clinic investigating the impact of diet on hea ...
and the pegan diet of Mark Hyman.
Marketing
Most fad diets promote their plans as being derived from religion or science. Fad diets may be completely based on pseudoscience
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable clai ...
(e.g., "fat-burning" foods or notions of vitalism
Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." Wher ...
); most fad diets are marketed or described with exaggerated claims, not sustainable in sound science, about the benefits of eating a certain way or the harms of eating other ways.
Such diets are often endorsed by celebrities or celebrity doctor
Celebrity doctors include physicians, medical professionals, people with the title doctor, and some with the nickname "doctor" who have extensive media exposure. Some may have a secondary role as an entertainer. Examples of celebrity doctors inclu ...
s who style themselves as "gurus" and profit from sales of branded products, books, and public speaking.[Tina Gianoulis, "Dieting" in the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture Ed. Thomas Riggs. Vol. 2. 2nd ed. Detroit: St. James Press, 2013. p106-108. ] One sign of commercial fad diets is a requirement to purchase associated products and pay to attend seminar
A seminar is a form of academic instruction, either at an academic institution or offered by a commercial or professional organization. It has the function of bringing together small groups for recurring meetings, focusing each time on some parti ...
s in order to gain the benefits of the diet.
The audience for these diets is people who want to lose weight quickly or who want to be healthy and find that belonging to a group of people defined by a strict way of eating helps them to avoid the many bad food choices available in the developed world.
Regardless of their evidence base, or lack thereof, fad diets are extremely popular, with over 1500 books published each year, and many consumers willing to pay for diet products, making for an industry worth $35 billion/year in the US.[ About 14–15% Americans declare having used a fad diet for short-term weight loss.][ Fad diet is a part of the diet industry with no specific estimation available, with the biggest part being "diet foods" such as light soda, for a total diet industry worth $35 billion/year in the USA.]
An analysis of the top trending diet-related queries on Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
's search engine between 2006 and 2016 reveals that diet practices are highly variable and ever changing.
Society and culture
According to the American Heart Association, a liquid very-low-calorie diet caused at least 60 deaths in 1977.
In Sweden, in 2005, the Atkins diet was at the crux of a controversy, when Dietician started recommending it to her diabetic patients, which prompted an investigation by the Swedish National Institute of Public Health ().
List of fad diets
Fad diets are a subset of all named or defined diets, typically identified by being associated by a founding person or organization, making health claims, most often of rapid weight loss.
See also
* Health food
A healthy diet is a diet that maintains or improves overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients such as protein, micronutrients such as vitamins, and adequate fibre and food energy.
A health ...
* List of food faddists
* Food trends
Food trends are widespread changes in food preferences. Some such trends prove to be long-lasting. Food trends are often discussed in magazines devoted to cuisine, and around the internet.
Duration
Although certain food trends may be more of a ...
References
External links
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FakeMeds
a UK campaign to raise awareness of fake medical products, including diet related
Be Science Savvy to Avoid Falling for Health Trends and Fad Diets
American Heart Association, 7 December 2018
Diet reviews by the Harvard School of Public Health
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{{Fad diets
Diets