The 17 Day Diet: just another fast fad

I'm not really one for dieting. My freshmen year of college, a few of my dormmates and I decided to try the Special K diet. It promised a 6 pound weight loss in two weeks simply by replacing 2 daily meals with a bowl of Special K cereal. I probably lost about 4 pounds, but found myself feeling constantly hungry and never wanting to see another flake of cereal again. Since then, I have learned a lot about health and have come to the conclusion that diets are just not for me. In fact, I don't think diets are really good for anyone. Because of this I'm always fascinated that the media often promotes fad diets as the answer to all weight problems.

According to this article on Yahoo Shine!, the 17 Day Diet is the latest craze in the dieting world.

-The diet is 68 days in total and is broken up into 4 parts, all 17 days each.

-The diet also incorporates 17 minutes of daily exercise.

-The diet promotes the use of meal planning while on the diet, often supplemented with snacks and meals made specifically for the 17 Day Diet.

The article focuses on the pros and cons of the diet as a way to explain the way it works. Some of the pros include the fact that the a significant initial weight loss often occurs during the first 17 days making the results easy to see. The cons include the fact that there is no real scientific proof that this diet works.

After reading through the article, I think the way the information is portrayed is helpful. Clearly, this diet is yet another fad and does not seem promising. Perhaps what is most alarming is the fact that this new way of eating and exercising is promoted as a "diet" when it could easily be incorporated into a lifestyle for the long term.

I don't know about you, but I often view diets as something that is fast and used for a quick weight loss. They often fail because it's easy to fall back into the same patterns after only changing them for a few weeks. By promoting this plan as a diet, the same view remains. It seems like the plan may work, but ultimately, this plan could be yet another yo-yo waiting to happen.

This idea of "fast" is something that is all too common in the media today. Everything in our country is valued as long as it's fast and relatively easy. We want things as soon as possible, therefore if something is promoted to bring results quick it will become popular. By relying on this idea, the media is most likely going to be successful in promoting yet another diet failure.