The Dangers of Fad Diets

Whether you’ve been considering losing weight or not, chances are that you’ve heard of Weight Watchers, Slimming World, the more controversial Atkins diet and the relatively new GI diet. There are also a staggering range of ‘fad’ diets on offer, all with fantastic weight loss claims. Some of them appear purposely designed to make your life miserable, some are just plain dangerous!

A fad diet can be defined as an eating plan promising easy, fast weight loss. It offers too good to be true claims of ‘tricking’ the body into using up unwanted calories and burning fat deposits. A ‘miracle’ food is often involved on which the diet’s success hinges; examples include ice cream, peanut butter, grapefruit and coconuts.

The problems with fad diets are numerous. However one of their downfalls is that they don’t provide the body with the vital nutrients it needs on a daily basis. They also don’t encourage a healthy lifestyle, essential for maintaining weight loss (exercise is rarely included in the plans), and they are unsustainable for most people for more than a few days.

Here are a few of the more bizarre eating plans on offer:

Cabbage Soup Diet: The cabbage soup diet is one of the most famous and long-standing fad diets. In its original form the plan consists of eating cabbage soup, and nothing else. There are also several variations in which fruit and vegetables can be eaten on different days. The cabbage in the soup is supposed to have ‘fat-burning’ qualities, so the more soup you eat, the more fat you burn. In reality, the more soup you eat, the more you get bored with it! This diet is only supposed to be followed for 7 days. During this time dieters can feel light-headed and weak, with the added embarrassing side-effect of flatulence.

Israeli Army Diet: This diet has nothing to do with the Israeli Army; it was given the name as a promotional tool to associate it with the army and give it a hint of (underserved!) credibility. However, any soldier on this plan would struggle to put his boots on, let alone go for a ten mile trek! This is an eight day plan, but you might find yourself struggling to get beyond lunch on the first day. The idea is that on every two consecutive days of the diet, you only eat one thing. As the four selections are apples, cheese, chicken and salad, no wonder this is one of the most nutritionally unbalanced and therefore dangerous diets out there!

Grape Diet: The grape diet was introduced in the 1920’s book ‘The Grape Cure’ by Johanna Brandt (ISBN 9780879040024), who claimed that an all grape diet cured her of stomach cancer. This is a very nutritionally unsound diet, with numerous side effects including diarrhoea, cramps, constipation, headaches and body aches. Worryingly, this diet is still being touted on some obscure websites as a cure for cancer; this is despite the fact that there is no medical evidence to prove this. As you may guess from the name, this diet consists of eating as many grapes as you wish… and nothing else. Due to the severe limitations of the plan and the consequent severe side effects, this diet is definitely one to be avoided at all costs!

Baby Food Diet: This diet was invented by the fashion designer Hedi Slimane and has recently become popular with A-list celebrities such as Jennifer Anniston. It may not be the most dangerous, but it’s perhaps one of the more demeaning diets. The plan involves replacing regular meals with jars of baby food. One of the dangers, depending on how many meals a day are substituted in this way, is that the dieter can end up malnourished; food suitable for a baby won’t contain all the nutrients that a grown adult will need.

Lemonade Diet: This is another diet which has gained popularity with celebrities. The ‘lemonade’ in this diet isn’t anything like the real thing; it’s made out of lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper and water. You don’t eat anything, but just drink the lemonade (about 10 servings a day). As well as drinking herbal laxative tea before bed, a salt water flush is drunk in the morning. The side effects from the diet include diarrhoea, dizziness, fatigue, irritability and nausea, and the salt water flush may also make you sick.
Sticking to these diets for a few days might give the weight loss they promise, but the weight lost is in the main water, not fat. When the dieter returns to normal eating, the weight will go straight back on. Keep the diet up and you’ll either go mad, ram raiding the cake shop to ease those food cravings, or your health will suffer badly.

‘Too good to be true’ diets are often just that, and can cause more harm than good. If you really want to lose weight, a lifestyle change is the best way to go, and join a slimming group if you need the extra motivation. Plans such as Weight Watchers and Slimming World incorporate treats in limited amounts into the diet plan, so you don’t feel like you’re denying yourself.

This makes the plans easier to stick to as forbidding certain foods will only make you crave them more. When you get to breaking point you’re more likely to eat the whole cake rather than the slice you originally wanted. The weight loss might be slower, but it is much more likely to stay off, and at least you won’t be miserable.