10 Questions Suggested : People Desperate to Lose but What Diet to Choose?

New diets seem to hit the grocery store check-out line racks and book store shelves faster than the refrigerator empties during an eating binge.

So it’s no wonder that overweight people have a hard time sorting through the latest diets in search of the one that will really help them lose those unwanted pounds safely, and keep them off.

To help, Theodore Berland, an associate professor of communications at the Grand Valley State College in Allendale, Mich., has developed 10 questions dieters should ask themselves before embarking on another weight-loss effort.

“People are desperate to lose weight,” said Berland, who offered his guidelines during a recent meeting of the North American Assn. for the Study of Obesity.

Want to Awake Slim

“There are a lot of desperate people out there who want to go to bed fat and wake up skinny. They grasp at the next straw at the book store. But some diets may be dangerous, and may hurt their health,” he said.

During his presentation, Berland said he used his questions to rate about a dozen diets. He determined that a group of diets including, and similar to, the Weight Watchers diet were the best.

Like all good diets, these had three important components: A meal plan, exercise regimen and a way to change old habits so dieters could stick to the diet and avoid regaining weight.

Among the diets that rated poorly were “Fit for Life,” which was “completely unbalanced,” the “Immune Power Diet,” which is “not based on any particular principles,” and the “Rotation Diet,” which is a “crutch diet” because it may work for a short time but the lost weight will quickly be regained, he said.

Ask 10 Questions

Berland’s 10 questions are:

1. Is the diet based on a secret?

“There are no secrets in dieting,” he said. Diets should instead be based on sound nutritional and medical evidence, he added.

2. Is the person promoting the diet well known, well respected and knowledgeable?

3. Has the author tried the diet on a lot of people?

4. Have the results of the diet been published in a scientific journal or been presented at a conference for peer review?

5. Is the proponent of the diet challenging recommendations of the best nutritional authorities?

6. Is the claim based on the principles of someone else?

7. Is the diet nutritionally balanced?

8. Does the diet allow for individual tastes and preferences?

9. Is this the kind of diet you can live with for the rest of your life?

10. Who recommends the diet?