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I was happy to be one of a few experts quoted in the Washington Post article The Truth about Gluten-Free, Paleo, and other Diet Books which discusses some of the flaws with today’s “quick fix” restriction diets.

I don’t believe in diets. They just don’t work.  Diets are not only often ineffective, but they can also be unsafe (particularly ones that involve food restriction and/or fasting).  You don’t need to stop eating food to be healthy.  A well-balanced meal plan and mindful eating are much more practical solutions to weight-loss and lifestyle improvement.

If one diet worked, we would need only one!  However, dieting is a multi-billion dollar industry. Talk about selling “snake oil.” Everyone has an agenda and if what is being promised sounds “too good to be true,” it is.

Check out some of my favorite comments from the article’s other experts:

“Diets are, almost by definition, things you get on and get off.  It really needs to be about your whole dietary pattern. If you wouldn’t put your 4-year-old child or your 80-year-old parent on this diet with you, it’s a gimmicky short-term fix and not a way of eating better for a lifetime.”

—Dr. David Katz  http://www.davidkatzmd.com/

“Any diet that excludes one or more entire categories of foods is difficult for many people to follow.  For some people, it’s easier to exclude whole categories — wheat, meat, dairy, carbohydrates, et cetera — than to just eat less and eat better. But the more food categories excluded, the more people are likely to give up on the diet.”

— Dr. Marion Nestle http://www.foodpolitics.com/

To read the full article, visit The Washington Post

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