The gimmicks change every decade. The underlying mechanism almost never does.
Fad diets are nothing new — the specific gimmicks change, but the pattern (a dramatic promise, a rigid rule, a celebrity or authority figure, and eventual fade-out) has repeated for over a century.
Arguably the first mass-market diet book, a low-carb approach by a British undertaker who'd lost weight avoiding starch and sugar.
Marketed pills claiming to contain tapeworm eggs for weight loss — genuinely dangerous, and a useful reminder that "diet products" haven't always been regulated.
A week of near-exclusive cabbage soup — extremely low calorie, nutritionally incomplete, and never intended for long-term use.
Built on the unsupported claim that grapefruit contains special fat-burning enzymes — the calorie deficit from a very restrictive plan did the actual work.
Meal-replacement cookies formulated to be low-calorie and appetite-suppressing — a repackaged calorie restriction, not a metabolic breakthrough.
Covered in depth on our detox diets page — your liver and kidneys were already doing this job.
Almost every fad diet in this history works, briefly, through simple calorie restriction — dressed up with a specific food, ingredient or ritual that gets the credit. The name changes every decade; the mechanism rarely does.
This is exactly the cycle THE FAD was named to poke fun at — see our manifesto for the full story.