Pros And Cons Of Fad Diets

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North America is seeing a rise in death due to obesity in recent years. In America alone, 300 000 individuals die of obesity per year and is the second leading cause of preventable death. A large number of health issues arise from being overweight and obese such as heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Health risks are not the only reason for people to strive to lose weight, the idea of having a lean, muscular, and fit body considered attractive by the media have also driven fat people to take active steps towards weight loss. When people see advertisements like "lose 10 pounds in 10 days" or "25 pounds in only two weeks" makes their hearts skip a beat at the possibility of dropping pounds without any pain or bother. These advertisements target …show more content…

For a large number of obese and overweight people, a new trend is emerging that promises quick and easy weight loss, fad diets. Fad Diets are not the quick and easy fixes to weight problems that they may seem to be, in fact, they are often costly, ineffective, and even dangerous. Fad diets, in fact, cost a great deal of money not only for the consumer but also in its production and advertisement. There are a large number of diets that involve purchasing pills or unusual commodities. A study in 2013 reported that $ 109-million dollars is spent each day on purchase of fad diet products. One of the most popular form of fad dieting is solid food intake and it requires one to eat an excessive amount of one food. The subway diet is an example of a diet where Jared Fogel, a subway spokesperson, claimed to …show more content…

It is recommended by health professionals to lose a maximum of 2 pounds of weight a week and both excessive and insufficient intake of food can cause health problem. Losing more than 2 pounds a week may pose danger such as irregular heartbeats, electrolyte changes, and loss of muscle. When losing weight, the aim is to lose fat and build muscle. Muscle is needed to help burn calories and most fad diets don 't involve exercise which builds up muscle. The weight lost in fad dieting may be muscle instead of fat and although losing muscle means you lose a few pounds, it is not benefitting the individual. Muscle helps burn calories and losing muscle mass by way of fad dieting may make it harder for a person to keep weight off in the future. Nutritional deficiencies will take a toll on an individual 's body. The natural vitamins, nutrients, and minerals gained by a good balanced diet is important to bodily functions. Lack of proper supplements for the body leads to malnutrition and can be shown as hair loss and brittle nails. There are a few bizarre and extremely dangerous fad diets done decades ago and were proved to be useless but somehow is still being done by individuals to lose weight. The tapeworm diet is one of those unusual diets. This is where a tapeworm is placed inside a person to allow for maximum food consumption without getting bigger fatter because the tapeworm will take care of any excess calories

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