Miracle diets

The great interest aroused in the search for a certain body image has led to the emergence of numerous diets on the market, promising rapid and effortless weight loss. These miracle diets, prescribed by people outside the field of nutrition, lack scientific rigor and use pseudo-scientific strategies or arguments to convince them of their benefits.

Year after year, new weight loss diets appear through television programs, fashion magazines, ... that induce a very severe caloric restriction. They are characterized by being unbalanced in nutrients and providing very little energy, constituting a health risk. In addition, by excluding many foods necessary for the body, they contribute to the acquisition of bad eating habits and lead to a monotony of food that make them unsustainable over time.

For Basilio Moreno, president of the Spanish Association for the Study of Obesity, "it is very important to report on these diets, since all, to a greater or lesser extent, are dangerous to health."

Fesnad (Spanish Federation of Nutrition Societies) warns that miracle diets could increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, various types of cancer, kidney and liver problems, as well as osteoporosis. They are unbalanced and do not meet nutritional needs. Still, 31% of overweight Spaniards have ever followed a "miracle diet."

In recent years they have been spread by the false belief of "new, magical and revolutionary" and some of these "miraculous, picturesque and sensationalist diets" achieve a short-term weight loss, not for the supposed benefits attributed, but for being low in calories.

Therefore, to achieve long-term weight loss we must flee from miraculous methods and form good eating habits.

Learning to eat in a balanced way, with a variety of foods, together with the regular practice of physical exercise, are the best method to preserve health.