Why fad diets are bad diets!

A personal trainer’s main responsibilities are to help people get healthy or maintain their healthy lifestyle. Making someone ‘skinny’ should never be the objective; although, what people often want is not what they need.  Fad diets have become extremely popular, particularly with women, but these shortcuts to weight loss and ‘skinny jeans’ are often unhealthy and detrimental to the body systems.

A fad diet is a weight loss plan, or aid, that promises dramatic results but do not result in long-term weight loss.  Professionals in the health and fitness industry realize that these diets (fad diets) can actually be dangerous to a person’s health. Most fad diets are focused on extremely concepts such as high carbohydrate/low fat, unrealistic portion sizes, liquid diets, or even diet pills/herbal remedies.

Young adults often turn to fad diets as a quick fix to solve their weight issues. The ages at which many of these diets take places are between 18-28 years old. “Despite the warnings from physicians about short cuts to weight loss, many young adults choose fad diets, because they want to obtain the glamorized image of thinness and beauty.”(Wax, 2012)²  Many young people have a warped self-image and see themselves as overweight - even if they are not - simply because they don’t ‘fit’ into the paper-thin world of the fashion industry.  Skinny jeans are a prime example of a fashion trend that causes many young people to embrace fad diets.

Fad diets are one of the most popular regimens that women use to lose weight. More so than men, some will go from one fad diet to the next despite the fact that the one before did not work. These fad diets have cleaver, catchy names that entice and encourage young women, for example the Skinny Girl Diet! Yet, regardless of promises and the hype, the fad diet will always end in heartache and failure.

Personal trainers must be educated in nutrition education so that they can educate their clients about the dangers of fad diets. Personal trainers should provide their clients nutritional sound and safe ways to lose weight. The http://www.foodpyramid.com/mypyramid/ is a reputable site for providing basic information.

Reminder --- the only safe, long-term solution to weight loss is EXERCISE & PROPER NUTRITION and any fad diet that stands alone will turn some into a bag of bones.