Fad diets

The simplest way to lose weight is to go on a diet - or so we are led to believe. It seems to make sense: eat less, have less fat. And it does make sense up to a point.

Given our culture's current obsession with thinness despite a growing rate of obesity in the western world, it's no surprise that we're positively inundated with fad weight loss plans and popular diets. Popular diets tend to range from re-workings of old tried-and-true methods, to harmless but largely ineffectual plans, to downright dangerous ideas. Should measures then be placed to regulate extreme diet?

Some examples of current popular diets include the Grapefruit plan, the South Beach plan, various Detox plans, the Blood Group plan, the GI plan, and the Cabbage Soup plan.

Many of these fad plans promise that large quantities of weight can be lost very quickly. If you believed what various celebrities and women's magazines are preaching, high protein diets, detox diets, food combining diets and such like are the saviours of the Western world here to save us from becoming fat But what happened to good old fashioned healthy eating? Too boring and not trendy enough? Nutritionists recommend that you lose no more than 1-2 pounds a week on any weight loss plan. Anything more will jeopardize your health. The other downfall of these fad plans is that because they seldom teach you how to eat in a healthy way on your own, once the fad is over, you tend to gain the weight back.

A new poll by handbag.com. asked thousands of women to present the naked truth in the biggest, most comprehensive survey of women's attitude towards their body.

The results reveal that women's body confidence comes from adopting traditional habits, such as maintaining a healthy lifestyle and eating well-balanced meals (35%) or exercising three times a week (18%). In contrast, following the principles of diets such as Atkins, WeightWatchers or the Cabbage Soup Diet received a mere 10% of votes.

Women almost unanimously agreed (91%) that they are under more pressure than men to have a good body. Yet only 2% of women are entirely confident with their body shape in spite of the fact that over 70% are an enviable size 8, 10 or 12. 41% of women would kill to be a dress size 10 and a further 35% wish to be a model size 8. In fact, 80% believe that achieving their ideal dress size would make them more confident about their figure.

So what do you think are we too into the trend of diets? Should we be more concerned about our health? Have your say in the forum now!

Released on Friday 26th September 2008