If you’ve ever decided to go on a diet after seeing an ad for one, a celebrity endorsement, or something your friend is doing, then you have fallen victim to the fad diet. Many fad diets can seem like a good idea at first, but they usually aren’t because they don’t teach you the right kind of diet to take part in. Some fad diets are just too complicated, and many people who try them end up giving up before they even get started. A common feature in all these diets is that they are temporary. If you give up taking these fad diets, it is easy to gain back the lost weight. These diets are also less balanced than other diet plans, and their nutritional value is also inferior. When you go on such a diet, you will often feel hungry because your body needs a range of nutrients to function correctly.

The actual definition of a fad diet is “any eating plan that promises quick weight loss, dramatic health improvement or easy money.” They pop up every few years, and people spend millions on them trying to achieve their goals. For the most part, some good healthy diets out there have been tested repeatedly and stand the test of time, but they are rarely the ones with celebrity endorsements or aggressive marketing campaigns. Just because celebrities endorse it, it doesn’t mean a diet is either effective or safe for long-term health. The majority of people who try fad diets fail to keep off the weight loss.

Are Fad Diets Beneficial?

Fad diets do not provide your daily nutritional requirements, and they do not help you lose weight permanently. New fad diets come up every other day where people tend to follow them blindly without realizing the consequences that might arise due to the lack of required nutrients in the body. Nutrition experts agree that fad diets are not beneficial at all. 

Fads can be harmful to your health and may even be life-threatening. Some fad diets include eating excessive amounts of fat or sugar and severely limiting the intake of certain foods essential for good health and normal functioning of the body. A fad diet is also known as a “faddism,” which is generally defined as a widespread but often unproven practice followed for only a short amount of time, despite being devoid of scientific support. In addition to weight loss, many fad diets also claim they can cure diseases and lead to an overall improvement in well-being.

Types of Fad Diets:

The Atkins Diet is a popular fad diet, and Dr. Robert Atkins created it in the 1970s. It was initially called The Atkins Nutritional Approach, and it provides low carbohydrate ways to lose weight fast. This diet is a high protein, low carbohydrate diet that focuses on eating foods high in fat with minimal carbohydrates.

Dr. Arthur Agatston created the South Beach Diet as a way to fight heart disease as well as lose weight fast; this does not focus on high protein foods like the Atkins Diet does, but instead focuses on healthy carbs and lean proteins with lots of fruits, veggies, and whole grains.

The Cabbage Soup Diet. This diet involves eating cabbage soup several times per day for seven to 14 days. There’s no limit on calories, but you must drink at least eight glasses of water per day. The jury is out on just how good cabbage soup is for weight loss, but we do know that it’s low in calories. The diet recommends two servings per day: one before lunch and one before dinner. 

The Grapefruit Diet. This diet suggests that you eat half a grapefruit before every single meal, and you can eat whatever you want as long as you limit it to half a grapefruit’s worth of calories at each meal.

The takeaway, then, is that the anti-fad food movement’s main focus of concern shouldn’t be on any specific diet or diet regimen—as each one may have its uses and benefits. Instead, it’s the overgeneralized consumption of these diets that can hurt the person. In other words, be wary of any diet that cuts out too many sources of foods that you usually eat. Doing so could leave you malnourished or unable to meet your body’s individualized needs. Instead, by focusing on a healthy range of both nutritious and flexible food options, regardless of whether they come from a diet in vogue at the moment, you can help prevent malnutrition problems and keep yourself healthier for a longer time.