Healthy eating should replace fad diets

This is the second part of the two part series on debunking the myth of dieting. 

Now we’re aware of the scientific evidence compiled over the years proving that dieting doesn’t work, let’s look at the origin of diets.

In the BBC documentary titled The Men Who Made Us Fat, Jacques Peretti investigated the history of dieting.

Peretti claims that the culture of dieting really originated in the United States in the 1940s. 

Dr Louis Dublin was a statistician for a life insurance company. He analyzed over four million policy holders and concluding that the overweight die young. 

Based on these findings, Dr Dublin made an arbitrary decision to scale back the weight that customers should be in order to prolong life. 

He chose the average weight of a 25-year-old.

Reducing the ‘ideal’ weight of the population made a huge cultural impact on America as, all of a sudden, half the nation was now classified overweight.

This fuelled the diet industry and made people ashamed of their body. Doctors were also telling patients they were overweight and needed to lose fat based on these new guidelines.

In 1959, Metrecal became the first weight loss supplement. It was 200 calories a serving and replaced breakfast, lunch and dinner becoming an instant solution to the new weight loss crisis.

People were losing weight on this radically reduced diet but were showing the same symptoms as a healthy person who was starving. 

The brain and body panicked and did everything possible to put the weight back on. It was deduced by Professor Hirsch that biology prevents us from keeping weight off and after an average of two years it will come back on. This was stated over 50 years ago.

This did not stop the dieting industry turning over millions of dollars by the 1970s. The Last Chance Diet by Dr Robert Linn was a craze that lacked so many essential nutrients it reportedly caused many deaths. 

In 1977, Dr Daniel Abrahams founded the Slim Fast revolution. 

This saw the new age of diet shakes and is still popular today. The business was sold in 2000 for a billion dollars. 

The main ingredient is sugar and the product relies on yo-yo dieters feeling shame and guilt about their weight so much that they keep on trying the product only to blame themselves when it doesn’t work.

In 1967, Dr Robert Atkins introduced one of the most famous diets around, the Atkins Diet. This diet gets rid of carbs and encourages lots of protein and fat. You can eat as much as you like on the Atkins Diet. 

Dr Atkins built his empire over 40 years but died in 2003 from which critics claim was from heart disease.

In 1975, Dr Pierre Dukan introduced the Dukan Diet, which had similar traits to the Atkins Diet and his business is now worth over $80 million. Dr Dukan even states that only one in four adults will permanently lose weight and blames people’s lack of self control and commitment for reasons
of failure.

Weight Watchers was founded in 1961 and is now a multimillion dollar business. Dr Carl Heneghan studied dieters on Weight Watchers and discovered only 20 per cent of people over a two year period and 16 per cent over a five year period reached their weight loss goal. He claimed Weight Watchers was ‘not effective’.

It is evident throughout history how much money the diet industry has generated although it has not been successful in helping people lose weight. We need to focus on our health rather than our weight and eat a balanced diet combined with regular exercise to lose weight naturally. No fads, no diets.

That is the secret pill the weight loss industry will never be able get their hands on.

References: Peretti, J, The Men Who Made Us Fat, BBC, UK, 2013