Fad Diets

Professor Field said in class one day that students who go overseas for their semester abroad tend to come back snobby and kind of anti-American. I wasn't particularly patriotic before leaving, and so I came down with a bad case of post-semester-abroad negativism upon returning that's been lingering for almost a year now. It's difficult for me to discern between what is truly a problem in our country, and what is simply my preference deviating from what I'm "supposed" to prefer. And so I'm trying to be as objective as I can be...I'm not anti-American, I just don't applaud some of the things we stand for as a country. And, believe it or not, this relates to dieting!

America is a nation of excess: we drive big cars, we live in big houses (or aspire to), we like to have a lot of things, we're even known for being taller than most people groups. And we're extremely overweight. I think, honestly, that we're caught between our ideal of "bigger is better" and common sense. Because bigger is rarely better, in the natural world. We have an abundance of food - and so we want to eat it all. Fad diets appeal to our lack of common sense: we eat a lot, and then we wonder why we've gained weight. And we want to lose it as fast as we've gained it. I fell for the Slim-Fast diet in high school, and it made me feel hungry and malnourished, even though I followed the directions. It actually made me more preoccupied with food.

What it comes down to is that we don't want to be persuaded with logos; we know that if we don't eat as much and if we exercise we'll lose weight. But that takes a lot of effort, and there are people who would rather go through surgery before cutting back and making a lifestyle change, something fad diets can't promote because they're...fads.