Why Do Diets Vary So Much in Their Advice?

One of the commonest criticisms levelled at the dieting sciences is that it's difficult to find two experts who seem to agree with each other on anything at all.
From common experience, many people would have a degree of sympathy with this view, as there is certainly a bewildering plethora of diets out there. So, which are right and which are wrong?

Avoiding snap judgments

When considering this issue, it's worth keeping in mind that sometimes the apparent fundamental differences between diets are perhaps less pronounced than they at first appear to be.

Most diets will, albeit indirectly, get back eventually to something relating to the need to control your calorie intake. Most diets will have very similar categories of food and drink that will be considered to be either entirely forbidden or certainly things to be consumed in extreme moderation. Virtually all diets will also stress the importance of some degree of modest regular exercise.

Sometimes different diets are also applied for different reasons. For example, a series of recommendations relating to the consumption of food may be significantly different to each other if one is targeted at reducing harmful cholesterol levels in the blood whilst the other is concerned mainly with losing weight.
So, in many cases, although it is fashionable for the proponents of one diet or another to argue with each other over their respective efficacies, in reality, there may be some considerable degrees of overlap between the two.

Different Philosophies

Of course, that is only a partial explanation because it is clear that many diets do have radically different points of focus and emphasis.

For example, some diets are based upon a significant reduction in the consumption of carbohydrates but allow an almost unlimited intake of protein. Other diets will describe this as being potentially detrimental to health and adopt what might be termed conventional calorie-counting as their approach. Yet other diets may argue for the elimination of trans-fats from the diet whilst being fairly relaxed in other areas.
Strangely, these differences of approach shouldn't be seen either as necessarily indicating total discord in science.

It is a fact that different studies have shown different dieting approaches to be more or less effective depending upon the individuals following them. Underpinning this is the science of statistics because it may be that a certain type of diet is very effective for say 80% of the participants but the remaining 20% may have been better served by different weight loss recipes etc.

Why do some diets work better for some than others?

That's to do with individual body chemistry. One person's body may simply be more or less efficient at converting certain types of foodstuff to fat than others. What that means is that it's important to understand an individual's physical status before designing or recommending a diet to them.

Summary

While it's true that some advocates of one diet or another have become a little over-zealous in preaching its benefits to the exclusion of all other approaches, the extent to which diets massively contradict each other is perhaps overstated.

The current evolution towards individually crafted diets based upon a scientific analysis of the individual may also further erode the existence of individual 'diet philosophies' that are seen to be at war with each other.

Ratna Rashid is an author and business manager in Adventures in Weightloss team. Adventures in Weightloss is a medically designed, weight loss program resulting in rapid and permanent weight loss. For latest update follow us on Twitter and facebook.

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