by Michelle Wilkinson

Created on: April 29, 2009   Last Updated: December 22, 2009

Fad diets tend to promise potential followers significant weight loss within a short space of time, which is why they are often initially popular. People want to believe that it is possible to lose a lot of weight quickly, and to maintain that weight loss. Fad diets, though, are designed to promote significant weight loss quickly because they are restrictive, and thus the fad soon passes when people realise that they need to continue working towards being slim, and that they will not simply lose all their excess weight overnight.

It is not surprising to see that so many people get drawn into the world of fad diets because of the obsession with weight and size our society appears to have. When celebrities are interviewed they often talk about how a particular diet helped them to become so svelte, and ordinary people are prepared to buy into the idea that they too can achieve similar results. What they fail to take into account, though, is that actors have the time and money to exercise regularly with their personal trainers and can afford to have their meals prepared by other people. They may also be receiving a fee for promoting the diet they claim to be following.

However, at certain points in the year, particularly in the New Year when people are feeling guilty for overindulging over Christmas, and before summer when individuals want to wear skimpy bathing costumes to the beach, all of the fad diets appear to come out of the woodwork. In the window of every bookstore there is a vast array of fad diets from the Zone to Atkins, grapefruit to watercress, and low-carb to low-fat. There appears to be a diet for every kind of person, though in reality they are all based on the practice of cutting calories drastically, often by cutting out whole food groups vital for good health, but at the same time facilitating fast weight loss. They might have different names, but they are all appealing to people's desire to lose a lot of weight quickly by changing their habits for a brief period of time.

Fad diets are not designed to encourage people to alter their patterns of thinking about food and exercise, but are there for them to follow without having to think about what they need to eat. It removes some of the responsibility from them and can make it easier for people, as they know what they are eating and when. It does mean, though, that they usually return to all their former habits once they come off their diet, resulting in them gaining back the weight they lost.

Fad diets appear to have little scientific evidence to back them up, but do have a wealth of followers who are prepared to praise the virtues of following the fad diet that supposedly helped them to lose a substantial amount of weight. Most people must surely realise, though, that fad diets are not the solution to their weight problems, and that they have to put the effort in and make changes to their lifestyle if they want to lose weight successfully.

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