HAWC offers true facts about false fad diets

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Lisa Baker
  • Health and Wellness Center
Vance Air Force Base, Okla. --  You've heard the advertisements: "Lose all the weight you want, without diet and exercise!" or "melt those pounds away ... lose up to 30 pounds a month, guaranteed!"
The American public is faced with an overwhelming amount of food and nutrition information. Despite the aggressive attempts by the federal government and various national health organizations to educate the public on healthy eating and nutrition, fad diets are everywhere.
Unfortunately, it is not always clear how to distinguish nutrition facts from fallacy. Nutrition facts are those that were established by research in a laboratory setting; nutrition fallacy consists of erroneous facts or misinterpretation of nutrition science. Fad diets come in all forms -- television ads selling a diet plan or product, a book on the bestseller list written by a doctor, a print ad in a newspaper or magazine, or from your best friend or next-door neighbor. How can you tell if a nutrition claim is true? It's hard! Here is a checklist of what to look for to determine if a nutritional product or diet promotion is junk:
n Promises a quick "fix" without change in diet or exercise
n Advertised primarily by the use of case histories or testimonials
n Contains some secret ingredient
n Diet is limited to a specific time period ("three-day," "seven-day")
n Simplistic conclusions based on half-truths of human physiology
n Recommendations are based on studies without peer review
n Limited studies and subjects
n Recommendations made to help sell a product
n Does it seem too good to be true?
Quick weight loss is not a permanent solution to being overweight. Successful weight loss means losing weight and keeping it off. A weight reduction diet incorporating changes in eating AND exercise habits, facilitating gradual weight loss, has been proven to be the most successful.
The problem with fad diets is they restrict or limit certain foods or entire food groups which is unrealistic, and probably dangerous (i.e. The Hollywood Liquid diet, the Cabbage Soup diet, the seven-day fat-burning diet). A seven-day diet may allow a person to lose some weight, but what happens after the seven days are over? Fad diets such as these cause a temporary loss of water, which gives the false impression of losing weight (high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets are known for this). Once eating returns to normal, the weight returns to pre-diet levels.
Another common fallacy is the "fat-burning" diet. Grapefruit or other foods will not burn fat. You burn fat by either eating less food than your body needs or doing aerobic exercise. To lose weight you must create a calorie deficit, meaning you burn more calories than you take in. A pound of fat equals 3,500 calories. If you create a 500-calorie deficit each day for a week, you will theoretically lose one pound of body fat. This is why weight loss is such a slow process. Any diet that promises you will lose more than two pounds per week is probably a fad diet -- don't be fooled! Remember the cardinal rule of nutrition: don't believe anything you read about nutrition from someone trying to sell you something.
People interested in losing weight through a program that teaches how to develop better eating habits and how to start or improve an exercise program can call the health and wellness center at 7968 and ask about the Body Composition Improvement Program.