(light calm music)
- Welcome and thanks for joining me.
My name is Olivia and I'm an accredited
nutritionist and dietician.
Today, I want to talk to you about fad diets.
How many of you scroll your social media
and encounter at least one of these influencer types
selling you the latest faddy diet and lifestyle plan.
And let's face it, some of them can look very convincing
and appear to be really healthy
and like something we should all be aspiring to.
As a nutrition professional, I get asked all the time,
"What do you think about this diet?"
Or, "Is this diet healthy?"
And so I'm here today to give you the pros and cons
on some of the more popular diets around just now.
I'm going to start with intermittent fasting.
Now this is a tradition dating back centuries
that is practised in many cultures around the world,
but has gaining popularity
for its perceived health benefits and weight loss.
While there are lots of variations,
the most common two are the 5:2 diet and the 16:8.
The 5:2 diet is characterised by five days of normal eating
and two non-consecutive days of restricted intake
of approximately 500 calories.
Now, when you think that a piece of fruit
is approximately a hundred calories,
that doesn't amount to much across those days.
Conversely, the 16:8 form of fasting
is 16 hours of fast daily,
and eight hours of normal eating during that daily window.
There's many reported health benefits,
but the most cited are weight management,
but more so in women than men.
And also it may improve insulin sensitivity,
which is good for people with insulin resistance,
such as in pre-diabetes.
But we're finding that impact more so in men than women.
This method has been successful for some people
for health and weight management.
But the evidence suggested is only as effective
as a general moderate energy restriction every day.
And the risk with the style of eating
is the over consumption of foods in the non-fasting periods
and the potential that sometimes people are choosing
unhealthy food choices during their eating hours.
Some people also really struggle
with the side effects of fasting,
which can be dizziness or weakness and headaches,
which may mean that people
are less active on those days as well.
These side effects of the fasting diet
are very similar to the symptoms
of another popular diet trend, the ketogenic diet.
In fact, this diet has its own term keto flu
for the symptoms of grogginess, muscle weakness, dizziness,
and in some people nausea, vomiting,
constipation, or diarrhoea.
Well, this might not sound very appealing,
this diet has received huge attention
for its weight management use
despite this diet actually being used to manage epilepsy.
Other names for this diet over history
has been the Atkins diet, south beach diet, the paleo diet.
While they all have subtle differences,
ultimately they are all very low carbohydrate diets
designed to put the body into ketosis,
which causes the body to use fat stores for energy
instead of carbohydrate.
If we were to rework our public health nutrition images
to suit a keto style diet,
it would look something like this.
With high fat foods,
including butter and meats being plentiful,
making up the bulk of the diet
and only a small proportion for a limited range
of low-carbohydrate vegetables, fruits
and alternative dairy sources.
Notice there's no grains there at all.
While this diet can produce rapid weight loss,
this is usually due to the fluid loss that people experience
as their stored glucose or carbohydrate is lost
in the transition from using
carbohydrate as an energy source to fat.
In reality, people tend to find it hard to follow this diet
in the longterm,
with the novelty of bacon and eggs for breakfast
wearing off quite quickly.
And for people with medical conditions such as diabetes,
kidney disease, liver disease,
or high cholesterol and blood pressure,
this diet would not be recommended.
The limits of fresh fruit and vegetables and grainy foods
also put the individual at a risk
of a number of vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
Hence, the keto supplements
that are usually sold alongside this diet.
In fact, on the original keto diet,
the Atkins diet, individuals who were recommended
to take a multivitamin to stop their hair falling out
and to reduce the risk of low mood and depression.
Let's move on to the clean eating diet,
a craze that has its foundations in healthy eating,
but has been elevated to exclusively
using fresh and sometimes organic produce,
no processed foods, and in some variations,
has borrowed from the keto style of diet
in reducing the type and volume of starchy foods
that can be consumed.
And also recommending sugar and dairy substitutes
and the use of plant-based fats,
including the not so healthy coconut oils.
While this diet, as well as the others discussed,
actually promote a lot of the health messages
that dieticians and nutritionists
would be very supportive of,
after all we could all do with eating less sugar
and processed foods,
there is a real risk to these diets
promoting over-restrictive dietary practises.
And for anyone that has a history of eating disorders,
these diets can reactivate disordered eating habits.
It's important to also realise that these diets
are not always what they seem.
The current presentation of the clean diet
when evaluated by one of our own academics here at Flinders
found that only about 20% of people
engaging with clean eating information
were able to follow it regularly.
'Cause let's face it,
who has time to prepare everything from scratch
or the budget to buy organic or berries out of season.
In a further study,
when they looked at clean eating recipes,
they were analysed and compared to regular recipes
for similar items.
The clean eating recipes, which often included coconut oil
and sugar substitutes had the same amount of energy,
fat, and salt as the regular recipes.
Therefore demonstrating that the idea of these foods
being healthier is misleading.
So what is the take home from all of this?
Are these diets healthy?
Well, yes and no.
Some are better than others
and most promote a large intake
of fresh fruit and vegetables
and reduced reliance on processed and fast foods.
However, they're all restrictive
and all associated with potential health risks
if followed in their extreme forms,
mainly due to the undesirable level
of food group restriction.
Well, it doesn't sound as new and exciting
and won't promise a quick fix,
healthy eating can actually incorporate
aspects of any of these diets.
And a nutrition professionals such as a nutritionist
or a dietician can help tailor your own eating
to accommodate health goals that you may have,
which could include a slightly lower
carbohydrate eating plan,
or it could include some intermittent fasting.
But we would be making sure that your overall diet
was healthy and complete for all your nutrient requirements
without needing huge amounts of supplements,
drinks, or teas to make up for the nutrient shortfalls.
We would also be making sure
that you have no medical conditions
that would make certain changes risky
to your overall health.
Here at Flinders, our programmes are designed
to train our graduates to offer realistic
and personalised dietary advice.
This is just the tip of the iceberg
in terms of how we equip our graduates,
but everything we do is grounded in evidence
and packaged with a client-centered focus
because we understand that one diet does not fit all.
Good nutrition is fundamental to a healthy lifestyle.
So if you're interested in food, working with people
and the relationship between diet,
health, and disease prevention,
then a career in nutrition might be for you.
(light calm music)