Why Celebrity Diets Don’t Work – and Can Be Dangerous
August 19, 2015When it comes to weight loss, I see many patients who have been tempted by celebrity diets. Besides having been adopted by people who are famous and look great, these diets have the appeal of being simple: By following a few rules – or eating a limited number of foods – you can get results. And oftentimes, the weight comes off … at first. But because of all the restrictions, these diets prove to be boring, and they aren’t sustainable long term for the average person.
Let's also keep in mind, that many of the large weight-loss programs have celebrity endorsers. According to Jo Piazz, celebrities earn $33,000 on average for each pound lost and the average salaries paid to celebrity endorsers of major weight-loss programs ranges anywhere between $500,000 to $3 Million.
Celebrities can afford to hire dietitians and personal trainers and always have someone looking out for their health. However, most of us don’t have access to those luxuries.
Even more troubling, fad diets often don’t deliver all of the nutrients someone needs. Bad things happen to peoples’ health when they avoid one or more of the four traditional food groups. But even overdosing on the same food can be unwise. The grapefruit diet, a.k.a. “the Hollywood diet,” can interfere with certain medications and be downright dangerous for people taking these medications.
The Paleo diet might be popular right now, but consider that our cavemen ancestors only lived to their 30s or 40s. This diet excludes entire food groups, and there have not been enough scientific studies on the Paleo diet to determine its healthfulness. Researchers often find it hard to study the Paleo diet. Why? Because study participants find the diet so restrictive that they have trouble sticking with it.
Extremely low calorie diets can trick the body into thinking that it is starving. The body’s response is to lower its metabolic rate and hold on tightly to every calorie a person consumes. Eventually this leads to muscle loss and fat gain, putting someone in a worse position than he or she started in.
Whenever possible, I want my patients to be helped by our program’s dietitian to follow a healthy, balanced diet that helps them lose the weight they need to. Some of them find success when they stick with a sensible diet instead of a celebrity-driven fad diet.
For patients who cannot lose weight even after following healthy diet and exercise habits, bariatric surgery is a last resort. True, bariatric surgery requires patients to adopt a new, healthier lifestyle. However, this new way of eating is one that ensures that the body is being nourished by all the nutrients it needs, and patients take bariatric vitamins to make sure there are no deficiencies. Bariatric dietitians meet with patients so that together they can determine a healthy – and realistic – diet that can be followed for a lifetime.
Photo credit: Eva Luedin cc
 | ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Christina Li is a board-certified, award-winning physician who specializes in laparoscopic gastric bypass, laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy and laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding, as well as other minimally invasive surgery procedures. Dr. Li is the medical director at two centers of the LifeBridge Health Bariatric Surgery Program. Baltimore magazine has named Dr. Li a Top Doctor for bariatric surgery. |
