Trending fad diets yield temporary results

With more pressure on body weight and image than ever before, fad diets are pervading advertisements everywhere.

From television commercials to scrolling Internet pop-ups, the options are endless when it comes to the latest weight-loss trend.

Junior Lauryn Marchert was intrigued by a dieting cleanse she found on Pinterest.

The Illinois native drank a concoction consisting of 60 ounces of lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup everyday before she left for her spring break trip.

“It was absolutely miserable,” Marchert said. “After the first day of spring break, when I stopped the cleanse, it was downhill from there, and I stopped seeing any results.”

Junior Abbe Williams, a health fitness major and nutrition minor, said diets aren’t as efficient as students think, and the results don’t typically last.

“Some diets might be healthy to an extent, but a lot avoid proteins and grains that your body actually needs,” she said.

Senior Nicole Hulka said she has been trying a new diet where she eats more fish instead of red meat.

The Muskegon native said this Mediterranean diet has kept her immune system stronger than ever.

“Everyone around me was sick, and I didn’t get sick,” Hulka said. “I’ve been eating more fruits and vegetables, and I feel so much better.”

Williams, who works at the Student Activity Center, said working out and eating healthy is the key aspect to managing any diet.

“If you stick to the same work out or same diet, your body gets used to it; you can’t limit yourself to certain foods because results will stop working,” Williams said. “Also, everyone is different in what nutrition they need.”

However, some students seem ill-informed about healthy dieting and are affected by get-thin-quick advertisements.

Hulka said some over-the-counter diet pills that are strictly for weight loss are not healthy and have some drastic outcomes.

OTC diet pills made WebMD's "6 Things Never to Do to Lose Weight" list.

"OTC diet pills are unlikely to be effective and are not necessarily safe or capable of delivering on the oft exaggerated promises," WebMD's Kathleen Zelman wrote, because the Food and Drug Administration does not conduct the same rigorous research on these products as prescriptions.

Many of the diets that trend on television advertisements intrigue students by luring them in with quick weight-loss results and images of impossibly skinny women and men.

Marchert said she finds that many students will choose not to eat all day when they want to go out and drink alcohol at night.

"Everyone wants to be skinnier, and, for a lot of people, these diets seem easier than getting yourself to the gym," Tecumseh senior Kelsey Karapas said.

Williams said working out is just as important and should be equal to the diet plan.

"You can't kill yourself in the gym, and you can't starve yourself," she said. "It must be 50-50"