Fad, or trend, diets are built on short-term solutions. They tend to restrict calories, incorporate meal replacement bars, or focus solely on one major food group. This doesn’t mean dieters don’t experience success; it means they’re taught a very limited approach to what it means to be healthy.

Healthy eating is more nuanced than fad diets — The Paleo diet, The Mediterranean Diet, Weight Watchers, Atkins, and NutriSystem all count — would have you believe. This is why when Abby Langer, RD, of Abby Langer Nutrition in Toronto, breaks down a lot of what’s popular for her clients, she emphasizes how people can really eat anything and still be a healthy eater.

“When people come into my office and ask me for a meal plan, it won’t teach them how to make healthy choices,” she told Medical Daily. “When you learn how to cook real food, it’s a real tool you can use forever. It’s not going to do any good if I spoon feed you information.”

Kim Larson, nutritionist and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics, agreed with Langer. She told Medical Daily people need a more consistent, satisfying, flexible, and healthy eating approach they can stick with long-term. Diets, she said, are futile.

Here are unhealthy components of fad diets you should watch out for.

Unhealthy Diet
The more popular fad diets become, the more we confuse unhealthy components and strategies with healthy ones. These three registered dieticians help us set the record straight. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock