Consumer Reports rated diet plans, including those that featured prepackaged foods delivered right to your door in May. The winner of that rating was Jenny Craig, despite the fact that it is often the more expensive of the options that are available. However, the US News and World Report decided to assemble their own group of experts and to look at a number of diets, judged by a number of different criteria.
That panel, created of twenty two nutritionists, experts in the field of weight loss as well as those that have professional knowledge in preventing diseases like diabetes, heart disease as well as those in skills in human behavior assessed twenty of the most popular diets.
Each diet was given a score from one to five on categories that included: short term weight loss or weight loss that took less than a year to achieve, long term weight loss,or weight loss that continued for longer than two years, ease of compliance, nutritional guidelines, health risks, ability to prevent diabetes and/or heart disease. The panel did not assess diet plans on either cost or exercise factors.
The overall winner for the panel was not Jenny Craig but rather the DASH diet. DASH stands for “dietary approach to stop hypertension” and is typically recommended to people who have been diagnosed with high blood pressure. The diet focuses on fruits , vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins, especially fish while reducing the amount of sodium that is allowed each day. Salt remains one of the most devastating ingredients in many foods, particularly frozen or processed meals and canned soups. Not only can the DASH diet help a person lose weight but can also help them to lower their blood pressure and their blood sodium levels as well.
Compliance was selected by the group to be reviewed because a diet plan, no matter how well written in might be is doomed if the person will not follow it. To be fair, the experts should have also included some real life dieters, according to several critics of the panel, who also went on to criticize the inclusion of some of the so called diets which are not technically weight loss plans but rather healthy diet plans meant to bring about healthy changes. Because they are so high in all natural, unprocessed foods, diet plans like DASH and the Mediterranean diet do help to lose weight but that is not the overall goal.
The best of the weight loss plans that fit the criteria was Weight Watchers which is clearly meant to help reduce body weight as well as to simplify that process for the average dieter. What was lacking in the panel’s discussion and criteria was a support system. Weight Watchers, as well as some of the others that received high marks do have support systems in place, including online or in person meetings that allow a person to connect, ask questions and to be inspired.
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What Makes A Diet Right?
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