Health and Medicine - Fad Diets Defined

The word "fad", as defined by Webster, is a practice or interest followed for a time with exaggerated zeal. Add the word "diet" in front of that and you get the definition for a fad diet. Fad diets usually come in three flavors: rapid weight loss, low carb, and celebrity. These types of diets seem to be constantly rotating in the spotlight on television, the internet, and the radio.

Rapid weight loss is the most common type of fad diet. Why wouldn't it be? Everyone wants to shed those stubborn belly clinging pounds in as short of a time as possible. Most rapid weight loss type diets promise astounding results within a month's time, more often a lot sooner than that. They are also characterized by having a meal plan that would kill most people if they tried to stay on it consistently.

Low carb diets are a bit more main stream. This craze began with that Atkins Diet. This fad diet requires the dieter to ingest mostly proteins. As the name would suggest, all most all carbohydrates are taken out of the meal plan. Sugars are also removed from the diet. This allows your body to burn pure fat instead of carbohydrates for energy.

The last popular fad diet type is the celebrity diet. This type of diet can be almost anything, from low calorie to low carb. If a popular celebrity or group of celebrities are on the diet and it is successful, there are sure to be a ton of band wagoners following the same method.

Like fashion, fad diets come and go. Every year there seems to be something different promising to help people shed unwanted body fat. Whether it is rapid weight loss, low carb, or celebrity, these types of diets will be around for a long time, or at least until the next best thing comes along.