Question

MINIMUM 250 WORDS:

Describe any “case histories” that you hear or read about and your impressions of weight watchers. Do the stories sound authentic? Do they sound as though the person’s weight loss was achieved sensibly? Do they present facts? Do they contain any “magic bullets?”

Answer 1

A friend of mine was suggesting a "veggies-only" diet to lose weight that she had come across on the internet. She claimed that several people have followed it and have had positive results. Several people have claimed to have lost several pounds within few weeks of starting it. On having a closer look it seemed a lot like a vegan diet. It turned out to be a creative marketing tactic to get people to buy supplements and products from a particular chain of "all organic" stores. My friend reported that she was feeling tired ever since she started the diet. Her skin had become dry and lost its lustre. There were visible signs of nutrient deficiencies. Luckily, her parents noticed all of it and they advised her to follow a regular diet. In short, most weight loss diets are just fads and have no scientific backing. They rely on starvation to lose weight. They are not sustainable on the long run and often result in nutrient deficiencies. Some extreme diets can even seriously jeopardise the health and well being of individuals. One must take advice from a professional before they make any drastic changes to their diets.

The claims made by most weight loss stories are usually false and misleading. They are often the result of a clever marketing campaign. Even if the claims of weight loss are true and documented by evidence, the results are not achieved sensibly. In a large number of cases, the lost weight is regained once the person switches to a "regular" diet. Fad diets like the keto diet, paleo diet, etc often misrepresent facts. The true extent of benefits and harm caused is still being evaluated by researchers. Fad diets usually begin in these grey areas where the benefits have not been clearly established beyond doubt. Magic bullets in diets often involve elimination/increasing the quantity of certain groups of nutrients altogether. For eg, fat-free diet or low-carbohydrate, high protein diet. Fad diets also take advantage of buzz words like "gluten-free", "organic", "all-natural" to promote the idea. As such, these have minimal impact on weight loss. Some may even be detrimental to the health of the person following such a diet.