Suggestions for Solutions

This was to generate ideas and solutions on how to recognize a fad diet when we see one, and thus be able to avoid falling into the trap of fad dieting.

• That’s true! To further elaborate on her point, I think that we can always pose questions to the diet we are trying to analyse. Let’s say you are faced with a diet, and you cannot decide if its a fad diet or not. Here are a few questions (based on trends of fad diets) you can ask to come to a conclusion. Do they sound too good to be true? Are there any loopholes (amazingly quick losses of weight) that question the reliability of the diet? Does this diet involve the promotion of a certain product or “magic food”? Does it look like an advertisement? Is there anything in the diet that contradicts information that you already know about health and nutrition? If the answers to most of these questions are yes, then they are most probably fad diets.
  Apr. 27, 2011

   
  
  

• Yes, I agree with her. Here is an example. One of common characteristics of fad diets is that they are too good too be true. They usually promise instant gratification, by promoting the loss of significant amounts of weight over short spans of time. 20 pounds lost in a week? A compromise must have been made somewhere, usually on nutrition, to achieve such wonderous results. Thus, I think we must firstly be able to recognize these diets to be able to not fall into their trap
  Apr. 27, 2011

   
  
  

• I think that just knowing what they are, the basis they are built upon, or simply their definition, is not enough. After understanding what a fad diet is, we have to learn how to recognize them, by applying our knowledge to various diets and coming up with our own conclusions. We can do this by observing common trends in fad diets, and refer back to see if these trends are seen in the diet in question.
  Apr. 27, 2011

   
  
  

• To begin with, we have to know what fad diets are, how they were formed and other simple background details. This can be done through research. For example, we defined fad diets as “weight-loss diets that gain popularity within a short span of time, but lose this popularity very quickly as well”. We now know what kind of diets are considered as “fad”. By knowing exactly what constitutes fad diets, we can fully understand the concept of food faddism, and thus not fall into the trap they set up for us.
  Apr. 27, 2011

   
  
  

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