What’s in a Fad Diet?

According to the National Institutes of Health, 68 percent of the United States adult population is overweight or obese.

In an effort to combat obesity and maintain a balanced, healthy diet, An estimated 45 million Americans – 14 percent of the population – diet each year.

Americans spend $33 billion annually on weight loss products.

As more and more Americans look for ways to improve their health by changing their eating habits, they turn to established and popular diet plans – also known as “fad diets.” Not all fad diets are the same; in fact, fad diets can be drastically different – from how they are followed to the effects they have on the body.

Carbohydrates are broken down into glucose to energize cells, tissues, and organs. The body stores excess glucose and converts it into fat. This diet reduces daily carbohydrate intake by nearly 75 percent in order to burn stored fat for energy.

Common types of vegetarian diets exclude meat, poultry, and seafood, while making an allowance for dairy products and eggs. Exceptions include a plant-based flexitarian diet that makes occasional allowances for meat.

The glycemic index (GI) measures how foods containing carbohydrates raise glucose levels in the blood with high, medium, and low ratings. This diet is based on eating a balanced diet composed of foods with medium or low GI ratings.

Skim Milk

Based on Mediterranean-style cooking, this diet emphasizes an eating plan that helps promote a healthy lifestyle. It has been proven to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, and incidences of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.

Primarily used to treat celiac disease, this diet has risen in popularity over the last few years. When following the gluten-free diet, all foods containing gluten must be avoided.

This diet, also known as the paleo diet, is based on foods that might have been eaten between 2.5 million and 10,000 years ago during the Paleolithic era. Followers of this diet believe that the human body adapts better to this original way of eating.

This diet consists of food that hasn’t been cooked, processed, microwaved, irradiated, genetically engineered, or exposed to pesticides or herbicides. Raw food dieters typically cite weight loss and an overall improvement in health as their reasoning for choosing the diet.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/files/docs/guidelines/ob_gdlns.pdf

http://www.bmc.org/nutritionweight/services/weightmanagement.htm

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-032013-182351

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/weight-loss/in-depth/low-carb-diet/art-20045831

http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fitness/food/what-can-i-eat/understanding-carbohydrates/glycemic-index-and-diabetes.html

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/vegetarian-diet/art-20046446

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/in-depth/diabetes-diet/art-20044295

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/mediterranean-diet/art-20047801

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/gluten-free-diet/art-20048530

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/paleo-diet/art-20111182

http://health.usnews.com/best-diet/raw-food-diet

Nursing@Simmons

Phone Number: 1-855-461-7466

Email Address: admissions@onlinenursing.simmons.edu

Legal

© 2021 Nursing@Simmons