Despite the evidence stacked against it, fad dieting remains popular. Researchers have begun exploring why.
Two years into a pandemic that landed people in their living rooms, generating countless hours of television bingeing and stress eating, the nation has a new problem to worry about: Nearly half of U.S. adults, many already classified as overweight, reported they put on extra pounds.
People are also reading… While the American Heart Association and other health organizations encourage maintaining a healthy weight, they emphasize the importance of healthy eating patterns over trendy diet fads or dramatic weight loss programs.
Gustafson's research found people without celiac disease who followed the gluten-free diet perceived themselves as more knowledgeable than people who were not on the diet, even though tests of their objective knowledge showed this wasn't the case. People on the diet falsely believed it to be a healthier way to eat and one that would help them lose weight.
"We want to believe that if we lose weight, our entire lives will improve and that's often the message in the marketing. It's a very simplified look at the world. Any time the message is oversimplified and sounds too good to be true, it probably is." – You need to buy something."The first thing I would look out for is if the source of information about a new diet is trying to sell something," Gustafson said.