Fad Diet Follies - Why Atkins and his ilk are for suckers

How is that low-carb diet working out for you? Perhaps you are on a low-fat diet, or you may be using a meal-substitution plan, going to a support group, or taking a dieting supplement. By now it's no news flash that Americans are fat, and we are getting fatter. Two thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, and this new epidemic is spreading to every demographic, even the young.

In the last few decades, the "weight-loss industry" has been bulging right along with the American waistline, with a plethora of products and plans catering to the desperately chunky. Despite the widespread use of diet plans and supplements, Americans have continued to grow larger, with a subsequent increase in diseases related to weight, like heart disease and diabetes.

There is plenty of blame to go around, and the American lifestyle is first in line. Americans are more sedentary than ever, glued to their TVs and computers and spending less time in physical activity. We also eat more: Americans have a legendarily gluttonous, positively supersized diet. Both sedentary time and food-portion sizes have increased, as Americans get predictably fatter despite bookstore shelves filled with weight-loss self-help books.

But it seems reasonable to put a portion of the blame on the weight-loss industry itself, which fools people with bad advice and products that simply do not work. The problem is that the advice and products peddled to consumers are not in line with the scientific advances that have been made in nutrition and weight loss over this same period. In the marketplace, pseudoscience tends to prevail, offering simple answers to complex questions--and easy, quick fixes to hard problems. What America really needs is some hard-nosed, no-nonsense, evidence-based tough love. So here it is.

Link