What Are Fad Diets? We have the answer!

What Are Fad Diets? We have the answer!

See our list at the bottom for Programs often considered fad diets:

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Food faddism and fad diet usually refer to idiosyncratic diets and eating patterns. They are diets that claim to promote weight loss or treat obesity by mechanisms other than calorie restriction.

The term "food fad" may also be used with a positive connotation, namely, to describe the short term popularity among restaurants and consumers of an ingredient, dish, or preparation technique.

Scientific view

Fad diets are diets that claim weight loss by mechanisms other than calorie restriction.

Many forms of food faddism and fad diets are supported by pseudo-scientific claims. Fad diets claim to be scientific but do not follow the scientific method in establishing their validity. Among the scientific shortcomings of the claims made in support of fad diets:

• not being open to revisions, whereas real science is.

• observations that prompt explanations are used as evidence of the validity of the explanation.

Some in the scientific community comment that food faddism is born of ignorance about basic scientific dietary facts. The evidence supporting weight loss enhanced by anything other than caloric restriction is lacking. There is also a lack of evidence to support that fad diets produce sustainable weight loss. Fad diets generally ignore or refute what is known about fundamental associations between dietary pattern and human health.

Fad diets

Belief in fad diets by adherents is often irrational. Many individuals who adhere to fad diets will not consider recommendations made by nutritionists and dieticians.

There are three categories of food fads. Some food fads incorporate a combination of categories:

1). The virtue of a particular food or food group is exaggerated and purported to cure specific diseases, and is therefore incorporated as a primary constituent of an individual’s diet.

2). Foods are eliminated from an individual’s diet because they are viewed as harmful.

3). An emphasis is placed on eating certain foods to express a particular lifestyle.

Extreme faddist diets often lack the energy, suitable protein, fat-soluble vitamins, and some minerals that are essential for growing children. Parents forcing children to adhere to fad diets to the point of severe nutritional disorders is considered a form of child abuse.

Others: Programs often considered fad diets:

• Atkins diet - officially called the Atkins Nutritional Approach...

• Breatharian - Inedia is the alleged ability to live without food. Breatharianism is a related concept...

• Cabbage soup diet - a radical designed around heavy consumption of a low-calorie cabbage soup...

• Grapefruit diet - also known as the Hollywood Diet and erroneously as the Mayo Clinic Diet, ....

• Fruitarianism - a diet that comprises fruits, nuts and seeds, without animal products, vegetables and grains

• Israeli Army diet - eight days with the dieter only eating one type of food for two days each...

• Low-fat diet - a diet that consists of little fat, especially saturated fat and cholesterol, ....

• Macrobiotic diet - a dietary regimen that involves eating grains as a staple food supplemented ....

• Master Cleanse - also known as the Lemon Cleanse and the Maple Syrup Diet .....

• Nutrisystem - a company that produces weight loss products.

• Paleolithic diet - referred to as the caveman diet, Stone Age diet and hunter-gatherer diet...

• South Beach Diet - original purpose of the diet was to prevent heart disease.

• Gerson therapy - "an alternative dietary therapy which he claimed could cure cancer"

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References

1. Merriam-Webster Dictionary, ides