American Diets

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Recommended: The evolution of the american diet

Throughout the years, many diet books, pills, and plans have been tried and, most often, failed. People still go after them, however, because of the statistics: 64% of adults and 33% of children and teens are considered overweight, and 30% of American adults are morbidly obese. Fat people are discriminated against at work, school, and in social situations. Obviously, they’ll want to do something to change that. That’s where the diets come in. Popular diet pills over the years have been controversial, ever-changing, and always expanding in numbers and names: Trilene, Trimspa, Metabolife360, and Alli, just to name a few. Each of these “cures” has their share of faults: Trilene and Metabolife360 both contained the dangerous Chinese herb ephedra, which caused strokes and tachycardia. Trimspa was found to be unsafe and was sued but continues to be on the market. Alli, while still considered a breakthrough because of its method of weight loss (as opposed to the popular appetite suppressants and fat burners, Alli is a fat blocker), still has its share of unpleasant side effects: leakage, watery/greasy stool, stomach pain and discomfort. Case in point, none of these major diet pills have made an impression of the benefits outweighing the risks. Diet plans are also popular. Weight Watchers, Atkins, “faith diets,” “raw food diets,” “blood type diets,” “tapeworm diets,” and “astrology diets” are also highly debated, supported, and contradicted. Each of these has their own pros and cons; some have scientific evidence to support them and some just have swear-by-it followers. Some don’t even call themselves “diets,” but would sooner refer to them as “lifestyle choices.” Others still have been banned: the tapeworm diet is banished to the... ... middle of paper ... ... making a fortune off of playing with that innate, intrinsic, insatiable need in the psyche of every human being to be accepted and praised not for whom they are, but who they pretend to be, and in that sense, what they look like. When society tells them to be skinny, they’ll try anything to get to that skinny. It’s unhealthy. It has been, is, and will forever continue to follow in a vicious circle, a catch-22 of sorts: as long as there are fat people, there will be diets. As long as there are diets, there will be people who try and fail at the diets for one reason or another. As long as people fail, there will be more diets, and so on and so forth. America has a problem. There’s no quick fix, and there’s not buying a way out of it. Until this problem is solved, the cycle of madness and obsession will inevitably continue until it spirals completely out of control.

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