Low Dieting Diets Dominate 2018 Best Diets

Low Dieting Diets Dominate 2018 Best Diets

In case you hadn’t noticed, the 2018 Best Diets feature is out. It’s great click bait for people feeling the weight of all those holiday celebrations. Not much has changed. But the picture is just a little sharper this year. The real news is that this best diets list is, at its heart, anti-dieting.

A Mirror or an Oracle?

Is U.S. News giving us what we want to hear? Or are they uncovering a profound truth with their annual ratings? Maybe a little of both.

This is the season when two opposing forces in our culture meet. On one hand, people are increasingly skeptical about the concept of dieting. On the other, many of them still would like to drop a few pounds.

And the inescapable fact is that the most effective way to drop those pounds is to cut the number of calories a person eats. A short-term diet. An unsustainable exercise for the long term.

But no matter how unsustainable, at this time of year, many people are looking for a bit of help from a diet to lose some of the weight gained over the winter holidays.

Diets and Patterns for Healthy Eating

So U.S. News is handing us diets that are really patterns for sustainable healthy eating at the top of their list. Tied for the top spot is the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet. Third place goes to the Flexitarian diet. All three of those are really healthy eating plans that can be used for a bit of weight loss in the short term.

But the real payoff is better health and a healthier weight over the long term.

Click here for the new rankings and here for more from NPR.

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January 4, 2018