nosh magazine
10 WAYS TO SPOT
A FAD DIET
Accredited Practising Dietitian and Associate Professor Tim Crowe provides
these simple tips to help you identify a fad diet.
iets. They are oh so tempting with their
promises of quick, easy and sustainable
weight loss. And for the hardened dieter, there is
never a lack of new options to replace last month’s
failed diet.
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Now, I’m the first to admit that advice of eating
healthier and getting more active isn’t going to
connect with most people, even if subconsciously they
know that this is the real key to long term health.
In fact, there is much that can be learned for
many, even me, from how today’s fad diets are
marketed and sold. They score a perfect 10 for
their ability to hook a person in. Never mind that
this hook is part of a tag-and-release program that
will see you back in the wild quickly, now primed
to be hooked by the next diet that comes along.
So here is a checklist for the unwary, to help you
keep a sharp lookout for that tempting bait on the
fad diet hook.
When evaluating any new diet, give it a point for
each item it checks from the list below. If it scores 2
or less, be alert, but not too alarmed. If it scores a 3 to
7, then you’ve got yourself a fad diet there. And an 8
or more, someone (not you) is getting very, very rich.
FAD DIET CHECKLIST
1. It has any of the following words featured in promotional material: fat
blasting, fat melting, metabolism boosting.
2. It rates carbohydrates on the same level of evil as a dictator of a
third-world country.
3. The first chapter includes the phrase: “Everything we’ve been told
about nutrition is wrong”.
4. It goes into a few too many descriptive details about bowel actions for
your liking.
5. It uses lots of impressive before-and-after weight loss shots. Because,
you just can’t fake those type of photos can you?
6. An A-list Hollywood celebrity used it to either shed kilos for their
latest buffed movie role or got their pre-baby body back one-week
after leaving hospital.
7. The person promoting it has a PhD from a non-accredited,
correspondence university.
8. The phrase: ‘Endorsed by [insert name of credible and appropriately
qualified nutrition professional]’ is not to be found anywhere in the book.
9. The diet rules are so complex, that for convenience sake it’s easier to
buy specially prepared food and supplements. Fortuitously, the diet
author sells these products on their website.
10. Dr Oz endorses it!
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ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR TIM CROWE, APD
Learn more about Tim: website | profile
Tim is a nutrition academic within the school of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at Deakin University and also an
Accredited Practising Dietitian. His teaching areas are in nutritional physiology and biochemistry, as well as the
applied role of nutrition in disease prevention and management, particularly obesity, diabetes and cancer.
www.n4foodandhealth.com
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