Fad Diet and Sustainable Diet Definitions
Before embarking on your weight loss or type 2 diabetes remission journey, it’s important to exactly understand the difference between a fad diet and a sustainable diet, so you can have clarity and are able to start your endeavors on the right foot.
There are many definitions of fad diets online. Here are a few of them.
A fad diet is a popular dietary pattern known to be a quick fix for obesity.
A fad diet is a trendy weight-loss plan that promises dramatic results.
These definitions are not comprehensive and create more confusion than clarity. For example, some diets with the same name (i.e., ketogenic, vegan) can be either a fad diet or a nutritionally adequate, healthy diet depending on their dietary composition and the criteria below. There are many popular other diets I could potentially discuss, but for the sake of simplicity, I will focus on discussing vegan and ketogenic diets in this article.
As you will learn, what matters most for healthy, sustainable diets, regardless of their name, is the overall food variety for nutritional adequacy, the total daily dietary fiber intake (my layman’s definition for dietary fiber is all the edible foods that come from the ground), and the ability to promote a life-long, healthy weight for the individual to maximize positive health outcomes.
Furthermore, both vegan and ketogenic diets have research showing beneficial outcomes, although they aren’t always optimized in many studies which leads to conflicting or detrimental results, as will be discussed below.
Therefore, I propose a comprehensive definition. A fad diet is one that:
- neglects or misrepresents the most scientifically-supported facts for promoting health (or does not take into account the different silos of nutrition science),
- does not meet the majority of nutrient requirements from food alone,
- requires excessive vitamin and mineral supplementation,
- does not confer benefits for life,
- and will not be followed for life.
It’s also indispensable to define a healthy, sustainable diet to promote the acquisition and maintenance of proper health long-term (diet in Greek [δίαιτα] means way of life or mode of living, not something restrictive that you follow temporarily for rapid weight loss). Therefore, a healthy, sustainable diet is naturally the opposite of a fad diet. A sustainable diet is one that:
- takes into account the most scientifically-supported facts for promoting health (as well as the different silos of nutrition science),
- meets the majority of nutrient requirements from food alone,
- requires minimal vitamin and mineral supplementation,
- confers benefits for life,
- and will be followed for life.
Let’s delve into each of these.