The Anti-Diet Era

Growing up in the '80s, diet books were a cultural norm. Women were often "on" some regimen or another, usually dictated by whichever had been published most recently. Diet books are romance novels of a different sort, promising that ideal version of yourself you've always imagined. The problem is that the concept of a diet – strict rules dictating "eat this, not that" – isn't compatible with our human nature. Oftentimes the more impulsive "reptilian" brain (amygdala) defeats the "thinking" brain (neocortex). After decades of cycling through various diets, however, we seem to be shifting away from the diet-du-jour mentality. Like books themselves, the notion of dieting is slowly becoming antiquated. (For the record, I am an ardent lover of books. Not of diets, however.) Sure, diets still abound. But there have been important changes in perspective. Namely:

• Focus on long-term vs. short-term. "It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle." Even though it is still a diet, we've moved away from focusing on short-term results (lose 10 pounds by Saturday!). We've taken away the light-switch aspect, wherein you go "on" or "off" a diet. Rather, you choose a healthy diet and commit to it.
• A shift in goals. Instead of focusing primarily on weight loss, people are taking actual health and disease outcomes into account now.
• Accessibility of nutrition research. As a coworker and I were discussing last week, growing up without internet (gasp), we largely relied on what the government told us to eat without doing much research on our own. My parents had some health books around the house, but compared to the information we have available today, it's night and day.

All of this is to say I think we're entering the Anti-Diet Era. We had our flings with low-fat & low-carb, and with various diet doctors (Atkins, Sears [The Zone], Agatston [South Beach]), but now we've turned our attention toward science. We're discarding diets for data. And even though we're still given certain rules, the framework has changed. It's not "do this for instant weight loss," it's "studies show that doing this can lead to this," usually with a focus on a particular disease. Science rules the day. Which makes me wonder whether we're truly eschewing diets and fads, or whether nutrition science – hugely important and mostly reliable, but also a relatively new and sometimes inexact field – is simply driving the next one. Are we entering the era of Data-Driven "Lifestyling?"