From the mildly restrictive to the insane, from the balanced to the bizarre, fad diets have been around for ages and don’t show any signs of dying out soon. This week’s Alternative Adventures article zones in on fad diets, exploring their various benefits and disadvantages.

When a good friend of mine once told me she was following something called “The Three Day Diet”, I was intrigued. The concept of following a strictly regimented diet for three days of the week and eating as you please (within bounds) for the rest of it seemed too good to be true. Some research proved, however, that this was true. “Weight loss is possible on the 3 Day Diet, but only because it is very low in calories,” says Kathleen M. Zelman, WebMD expert reviewer. “Going back to so-called normal eating does little to promote a healthier lifestyle; instead the pattern promotes undesirable yo-yo dieting or an on-again off-again approach to weight management that is not successful long term.” What is it about fad diets that lures so many women and leaves almost all of them feeling hopeless, confused, frustrated and exhausted – and usually weighing more than when they started out?

Skinny promises

“Eat what you want – and still lose weight!”. “Follow this diet and drop five dress sizes a month!”. We’ve heard them all. Most women who are unhappy with their weight are faced with such despair in many cases that these promises seem too enticing to discount. The idea of losing weight quickly and easily has been an alluring one to women all over the world, and it does not seem to be dropping in effectiveness – even though most fad diets have been proven to be ineffective and can, in some cases, hold serious dangers to your physical wellbeing. In a culture where we will always be too saggy, too chubby, too jiggly, too wiggly or simply too fat, these promises will never stop enticing and entrapping women as well as men – this is why fad diets are so effective in duping people out of their money, their time, and their self-confidence.

The danger zone

Most fad diets lead to temporary weight loss – mostly in the form of water weight or muscle – that is unsustainable simply because the demands the diets make on your body are too high. Diets severely restricting calorie, fat, protein, or carbohydrate intake can yield some weight loss as a result, but can simply not be followed through. “Fad diets are not sustainable for any period of time,” says the director of nutrition therapy at the Cleveland Clinic. “It is the reason so many people throw in the towel, feeling frustrated that diets don't work, when in reality it is the diet, not the dieter," she says.
 
A knock to your self-confidence and will-power, however, is not the worst thing that can happen to you. Because of the lack of balance and healthy variety including all food groups in fad diets, they seldom work – our bodies have evolved to work at their best with a wide variety of nutrients from various different sources. One danger the fad diet holds is that a diet that is very low in calories can put the body into “starvation mode”, which is a technique it has developed that ensures that all the nutrients it receives are turned into fat cells and stored for the future. The human body is amazing, and has adapted to the challenges and difficulties it has faced in the millions of years our species has been evolving – the bottom line is that your body knows when something is wrong. It will tell you. When people follow fad diets – whether it be the famous Atkins diet or the extreme Tapeworm diet – they are depriving their bodies of the nutrients they need, which will force them to slow their metabolisms and create more fat. Thus, fad diets often have the opposite effect of what was intended.

Luckily, dieticians and health institutions have been researching fad diets that come into fashion – and fall out again – for years. Through this research, the most consistent weight loss method has been proven time and time again: everything in moderation. Healthy food, as well as the occasional treat, should nourish and feed your body – not starve and punish it.

Visit the Fad Diets website for a humorous take on some fad diets, from the most popular, such as the South Beach Diet, and the most enticing, like the Chocolate diet, to the most obscure and bizarre, such as the Amputation Diet.

About the author: Kayla is currently a first-year Journalism and Media Studies student at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. She is the editor of the Comment & Analysis section of student newspaper Activate and she a writer for the Politics, Business, and Features sections, as well as a sub-editor for the paper. Her other subjects are Economics, English, History and Sociology. She devours books and sees herself as one of the blessed few who actually enjoy working. She is involved with student society SHARC (Student HIV/AIDS Resistance Campaign) at Rhodes and has recently graduated as a certified Peer Educator. She is the community engagement representative for the African Drum Society and is currently working with up-and-coming student society Common Ground in the same capacity. She loves watching art films and her guilty pleasure is shopping.

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