RSS
Home
Mommy, where do diets come from?
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
.jpg)
We as Americans have had a spirited, on-again off-again relationship with fad and fancy diets for generations. We’ve been bombarded with “experts” who tout their diet plans on television and print ads as the only one that will save us from the dreaded obesity that we as a nation now suffer.
A diet is simply the food that we consume in our daily lives. We are always on a diet, because we always eat. It is the restrictive diets that eliminate or control our intake of certain foods or amount of foods for the purpose of losing or gaining weight. That’s right; there are some of us who actually need to gain weight to be healthy.
Anthropologists have determined that our human ancestors were hunter-gatherers, consuming diets high in both protein and fat, and comparatively low in nutritive carbohydrates, although their diets would have been high in fiber.
With the introduction of agriculture, society saw the gradual rise of carbohydrate levels in human diets.
In 1863, William Banting, an extremely obese English undertaker and coffin maker, published his "Letter on Corpulence Addressed to the Public," where he outlined a diet for controlling one’s weight by giving up breads, butter, milk, sugars, beer, and potatoes. His booklet was well received and some people even used the term "Banting" to describe the diet.
Over a century later, Dr. Irwin Stillman published “The Doctor's Quick Weight Loss Diet.” The "Stillman Diet" was a high-protein, low-carbohydrate, and low-fat program, and was one of the first low-carbohydrate diets to become popular in the United States.
Low-carbohydrate diets are programs that severely restrict carbohydrate consumption for weight control or for the treatment of obesity. Foods high in digestible carbohydrates, such as bread and pasta, are limited or replaced with foods high in proteins and fats, such as meats, and low in carbohydrates like green leafy vegetables.
The American Academy of Family Physicians offers this definition of low-carbohydrate diets: “Low-carbohydrate diets restrict caloric intake by reducing the consumption of carbohydrates to 20 to 60 grams a day (typically less than 20 percent of the daily caloric intake). The consumption of protein and fat is increased to compensate for part of the calories that formerly came from carbohydrates.”
Other low-carbohydrate diets in that era included “The Air Force Diet” and “The Drinking Man’s Diet.”
In 1972, one of the more famous low-carb diets emerged when Dr. Robert Atkins, a practicing cardiologist, published “Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution,” which promoted a low-carbohydrate diet he had successfully used in treating heart patients in the 1960’s. The book was very successful, but research at that time identified significant risks linked to excess fat and protein, causing the book and the plan to be widely criticized by the conventional medical authorities as being too dangerous and very misleading.
Later that decade, Walter Voegtlin published his “Stone Age Diet,” and Dr. Herman Tarnower published “The Scarsdale Diet.” Both of them were very successful.
In 1981, Dr. David Jenkins and his colleagues at the University of Toronto, in their research to find out which foods were best for people with diabetes, introduced the theory of the glycemic index, or GI, which is a measure of the effects of carbohydrates on blood sugar levels. Carbohydrates that break down quickly during digestion, releasing glucose rapidly into the bloodstream, have a high GI; carbohydrates that break down more slowly, releasing glucose more gradually into the bloodstream, have a low GI. For most people, foods with a low GI have significant health benefits.
In the 1990’s Dr. Atkins published a revised model of his Atkins Diet with “Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution.” This was the beginning of the "low carb craze,” where low-carbohydrate diets became some of the most popular diets in the U.S. Some analysts believe that as much as 18% of the population was using a low-carbohydrate diet at its peak, and it has now spread to Europe.
There were detractors however. Some major food manufacturers and restaurant chains claimed that the low-carb programs negatively affected their businesses, particularly those industries providing high-carb foods such as pastries and pastas. And even though the medical community cited low-carbohydrate diets as being a potentially risky fad, many doctors and nutritionists secretly began to counsel their patients and clients on a low-carbohydrate program, like eating more protein, fiber, less starch, and reducing drinking of juices by children.
Because of the controversies, many of the diet authorities publicly dissociated themselves from Dr. Atkins and the term “low carb,” while their advice to their clients was still based on the same principles.
It is still debatable as to which diet is really low-carbohydrate, and there are ongoing clinical studies concerning the effectiveness and safety of low-carbohydrate diets. However, even though its popularity has faded, this diet movement continues to gain attention in the medical and nutritional science communities.
Although the Atkins Diet is still the zenith of low-carbohydrate diet plans, there are a myriad of other diet plans that share the same basic concepts, such as The Zone Diet, The Protein Power Lifeplan, The Go Lower Diet, and The South Beach Diet.
The amount of advertising for diet programs in the U.S. rivals that of the automotive industry, and there are certainly more to come.
Your particular diet needs are best addressed by your physician. You shouldn't’t embark on any of the commercial plans available today. Your doctor will know your physiology and, based on that, design or recommend a plan best suited for you and your health.
Until my next article, stay fit and be healthy.
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
