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Writer's pictureGabriela Muzzi

Are Internet diets really helping?

People today have many insecurities with their weight. Attempts to find diets to lose weight faster and more easily on the internet have increased, but this type of thing can affect one’s health in many ways. 


The most commonly used diet is the fad diet because of its speed, exclusion of carbohydrates, rigid rules, and a promise of “magic” food combinations. But you have a better option, going to a real professional that can help you slowly and give you better results: benefits to losing weight by having a healthier life and learning how to focus.


People today, because they are so influenced by social media, believe in everything they see. That is especially true for diets, Especially for women who suffer the societal pressures of weight loss and beauty standards. But these diets can be really bad because they often do not contain data that can prove the diet will work, and some of them motivate participants to remove quantities of certain foods when healthy eating comes with balance. According to Good Living Nutrition , 95% of people who partake in the diet end up in failure, meaning that only 5% percent lose weight and keep the diet long term. Another study shows that after three years of dieting, 12% of the people kept 75% of their original weight for a month or so and the rest gained 40% more than their original weight. 


Most fad diets are low in calcium, fiber, and plant proteins such as The South Beach Diet, The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet, The Grapefruit Diet, The 3-Day Diet, The Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution, Dr. Sears’ Enter the Zone Diet etc.. Take the Atkins Diet, for example: the problem is that it supports a high protein, elevated fat diet with  low levels of carbohydrates, leaving no limits for bad saturated-fat-landen-products. In this diet, butter, red meat, and bacon are abundant, increasing the risk of having heart attacks.  Therefore this type of diet will ultimately not benefit a person’s health with a bad health in the future; those who start this diet can only lose around 10-15 pounds.  This is important because fad diets affect a lot of people that decide to have a quicker result and with no data to it, but even if it’s quick, the weight loss won't last longer.


Why do fad diets end up failure? What does the fad diet promote? Fad diets have different ways of promoting, some restrict fats or carbohydrates, others focus on specific food combinations to avoid or to eat. The fad diet promotes rigid dietary restrictions about certain food groups such as certain high calories food groups that are most of the time blamed for weight gain because of their high quantity of carbohydrates and fats. However, they  have proteins, iron, and zinc as well, so it is good to eat them but in smaller amounts. Another problem about fad diets is that instead of using scientific data to prove their diets are trustworthy, they instead use testimonials to create them. Fad diets can be really tempting because of their promise to have a quicker solution for certain problems such as weight gain, but they lack scientific evidence to prove their efficiency.


Thanks to social media, the use of fad diets have grown even more. Influencers and celebrities make an impact on a big audience as they are always showing the “easy solution”, but most of the time this type of advice coil be something uncertain, unsafe, and harmful for the audience and with that spread of the fad diets some myths were created about what to eat. According to News Medical Science It's a myth that skipping a meal will help you lose weight. People who skip breakfast tend to have more weight than people who eat breakfast. Additionally, people say that healthier foods are more expensive, but sometimes eating healthier food can be much cheaper than eating junk food. You don’t have to buy the fresh ones just because you think they are more healthier, the canned food such as vegetables or fruits can be as much healthier as the fresh ones but they are cheaper and more viable options. However it needs to be cleaned to remove the excess of salt. Meaning that some people are only doing this type of diet because it's easier or even cheaper to do it, but they can have better options and have healthier eating and still be happy with not just your body but yourself!


But if the person still wants to lose weight or just have healthier eating habits, what can they do? It's simple, find a trusting professional who will really help you achieve your goals such as nutritionists or dietitians. The best way to get closer to a healthier weight loss, according to Dietitians Australia, is to follow a long term, healthy and balanced eating plan. And that’s why it’s important to have a dietitian, because every person has different ways of eating and the dietitian will help provide a personalized eating plan. The reason why we have to use a trusting diet plan is because the food that we consume could have a big impact on lives and help you prevent certain health problems such as: obesity, diabetes, and risks for heart, and cancer disease. Meaning that if people don’t choose a diet carefully they could end up having bigger problems in the future. People all around the world, especially kids, are being diagnosed with obesity, and if we all start to look out for everyone’s eating habits, we could have a better future. This issue is a global thing because it is something that, thanks to social media, has made people all around the world create insecurities that take them to a point where they would do anything to lose weight quicker, even following diets that are not to be trusted. They can help you lose weight faster but you could potentially face physical and emotional illness.

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