As we all know, weight loss diets are big business. And looking at the statistics, it's easy to see why. Currently, an estimated 58 million American adults are overweight, of whom an estimated 40 million are obese, 9.6 million are seriously obese and 6 million suffer from super obesity. Worldwide statistics on overweight are equally alarming, as reflected in the new word globesity. In China, the number of overweight people has risen from less than ten percent to fifteen percent in just three years. In Brazil and Colombia, the figure of overweight is about forty percent - comparable with several European countries. Even Black Africa is seeing an increase in obesity, particularly among urban women. In all regions, obesity appears to escalate as income increases. And the higher the incidence of obesity, the higher the incidence of weight related disease, including: type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders like insulin resistance, and cancers of the breast and colon.
Conventional diet methods
Both the US Surgeon General and the Dietary Guidelines For Americans issued by the US Dept of Agriculture emphasize the need for calorie control and increased physical exercise to reduce the overweight epidemic, but prove suggests that general diet methods don't provide significant weight reduction, due to poor compliance. Surveys show that annual weight loss resulting from convention diet and exercise programs averages less than 8 pounds per year, while in a 4 year follow up study of programs incorporating the use of obesity drugs, behavior modification, diet and exercise, the final average weight loss was 3 pounds. This apparent failure of conventional weight loss methods is often contrasted with the 30 - 40 percent average weight loss following bariatric surgery.
Food composition of diets
Fashion sells products, and weight loss diets are no exception. First we had low fat diets, which were promoted as heart friendly ways of reducing weight. Unfortunately, this message was interpreted by consumers as all fats are leading, all carbs are good, and led to an unhealthy overconsumption of processed carbs. With the relaunch of Dr Atkins "New Diet Revolution", the fashion pendulum swung the other way. Now carbs were the enemy, not fat.
After Atkins came the South Beach Diet, which offered us a more moderate low carb approach. Now, it's GI diets - based on foods with a lower glycemic response - that are high fashion and, being scientifically more beneficial, are likely to remain so for some time. However, while the food composition of diets may change, the basic law of weight loss remains unaltered: calorie expenditure must exceed calorie intake. To this extent, provided a diet is calorie controlled and includes foods from all food groups, the exact composition of foods remains no to a greater extent than a matter of personal knowledge.
General eating and exercise habits
When assessing the effectiveness of conventional dieting methods, due regard must be paid to general eating habits. In America at least, these do not appear to be helpful. Despite the mounting try of weight related ill health, social eating habits prolong to develop in unhealthy directions. Value for money supersizing continues to attract customers, while fast food sales continue to rise. And the lifelong demand for instant food only inspires the food industry to produce more and more refined food options bulging with nutritional deficiency and calorie overload. Is it any wonder that levels of diet compliance among average dieters is so low? Meantime, an estimated 78 percent of Americans don't meet basic activity level recommendations, while 25 percent are totally sedentary.
Ii collar the answer?
If colloquial diet programs press on less than perfect ways of tackling overweight in the face of ingrained eating habits, it would be misleading to write them off completely. Not only does research data from the US National Weight Control Registry evidence that long term weight reduction is perfectly achievable, a number of diet programs, especially medically supervised clinic based programs, are consistently live. What distinguishes these diets is the level of counseling support which subjects receive. Nowadays, this reinforcement can be provided in various ways, including: mandatory group meetings, person-to-person sessions, online forums or chat rooms. And it seems to work. For instance, according to recent studies, the average weight reduction for a 10 - 12 calendar week clinic based obesity program involving meal replacement diets, exercise and counseling support is 5.5 pounds.
Finding more support
If getting proper support is one way of improving conventional diets, dieters need to parade their approach. Rather than focusing attention on finding the optimal eating - plan, they need to look for programs offering optimal support. Weight Watchers is an obvious choice but diets organized around the workplace or other social groupings may also provide natural help. Online programs with forum support might also be considered. In any event, there's no substitute for a sincere dieting partner.
Adopting health habits
Given the reality that losing as little as 7 - 10 percent of body weight can improve many of the problems linked to being overweight, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, some obesity experts advocate a less formal approach to calorie control. They recommend adopting certain healthy habits rather than following a marked diet. An example might be a 200 calorie a day lessening achievable by taking a moderate 30 minute walk, and switching from whole milk to skimmed milk. This saves 73, 000 calories a year - the statue of 20 pounds of body fat. The commercial response to this approach is already visible in programs such as the "Three Hour Diet", which recommends regular eating to maintain a regular rate of calorie burning. Fancy to see more weight loss programs like this, which emphasize specific habits.
Premise
Current levels of overweight and obesity call for urgent attention. To be efficient, conventional diet programs need to offer optimal support rather than optimal food composition, in order to facilitate diet compliance. For people who are unable or unwilling to adopt a specific weight loss plan, making small but specific changes may be sufficient to achieve important improvements in health.
