Home
>
Weight Loss
>
Diet Fads: Supermarket Sheep

Diet Fads: Supermarket Sheep

Eighteen or twenty years ago, I was into high protein, high fat, low carbohydrate diets, courtesy of the original Atkins Diet Revolution and, to an even greater extent, Stillman's Quick Weight Loss Diet (which I must admit I still prefer to Atkins but that's merely personal taste). At the time, every aisle was loaded with labels proclaiming Low Fat or Reduced Fat. I didn't care about fat and sought much different information. Unfortunately, low fat was "in" and I felt alone and abandoned.

With a certain sense of resentment, I tracked down the carbohydrate costs of a wide variety of food, keeping a sharp eye on ingredients, calorie levels, and nutritional values. Certain items were strangely emblazoned with banners announcing low fat: pasta sauce, potato chips, candy bars, and ice cream. I was puzzled: how could certain foods, full of fat to their very core, be low fat? How could all the fat be removed and there be anything left?

I became fascinated with certain labels. Have you ever, for example, read the labels on those flavored coffee creamers? Zero fat. Zero carbohydrates. Zero protein. Zero calories. How can anything we put in our mouths have zero calories? A negligible amount, maybe, but absolute zero? What is in that stuff? Or is it virtual food, existing only in our mind's eye as a kind of edible hologram?

Mercifully, the low fat craze died its natural death. Atkins and similar regimens took over and the low fat labels were reprinted (corporate recycling at its finest) to read Low Carb. Suddenly, everywhere you looked, there were foods recast as low carb - again with the pasta sauce, the potato chips, the candy bars, and the ice cream.

I was curious. Had the manufacturers taken out all those carbs and put the fat back in? Where did those carbs go? Are there vast dumpsites in the desert where unwanted carbs are buried - next to worn tires, plastic bags, and nuclear waste?

Once more, I wonder: what is left in those boxes, cans, and jars? Why am I paying $1.19 per ounce for something that really isn't anything?

Then I started to figure it out (sometimes I'm a little slow). The food hadn't really changed at all, just the packaging. Food labels are like those ubiquitous Internet sales letters. They trumpet headlines that catch our interest because they are in synch with our desires and goals. Is that accidental? Of course not. Highly paid copywriters choose their headlines with great care, buying into the national "obsession o' the day", floating on the coattails of the latest fad.

Many of us are so desperate to control our weight that we buy into the promises like the unaware followers we are: bleating sheep heading for a precipice with no thought of questioning our leaders or striking out in a different direction.

The unspoken secret is that the label doesn't matter. If we want to lose weight, we don't eat pasta sauce, potato chips, candy bars, or ice cream. Period. No matter what the package says. Deep in our psyche, we know what we can eat (very little) and what we can't (a whole bunch). Allowing ourselves to be misled is only a fashionably acceptable way to fool ourselves, and we know it. We buy into the hype because we want, so badly, to believe. We want to think that we are doing the right thing, that we're really trying, that our motivation is pure.

Our weaknesses are being exploited by the packagers and the super store con men. Our ambivalence, and the overwhelming need to avoid the very real discomfort of effective dieting, invests the misguidance of food labels with an illusion of truth.

Like our dimwitted ovine cousins, we, too, are eventually fleeced.

Virginia Bola is a licensed psychologist and an admitted diet fanatic. She specializes in therapeutic reframing and the effects of attitudes and motivation on individual goals. The author of The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a free ezine, The Worker's Edge, she recently completed a psychologically-based weight control book: Diet with an Attitude:A Weight Loss Workbook. She can be reached at http://www.dietwithanattitude.com

professional maid services Glencoe ...

In The News:

Cybersecurity expert Morgan Wright says human skepticism remains the strongest defense against AI-driven phishing scams and voice cloning fraud schemes.

iPhone, Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy each handle security updates differently, and one screen saying "up to date" may not tell the whole story.

Deborah Del Mastro heard what sounded like her daughter's terrified voice on the phone, launching a five-hour virtual kidnapping scam ordeal.

Hotel TV privacy risks go beyond forgotten passwords when you sign into Netflix or other streaming apps on shared devices you don't control.

Apple's iOS 27 Visual Intelligence now lets your iPhone search objects directly on screen, but Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel have a head start.

x47.c Windows malware uses xAI's Grok to maintain persistence on infected PCs while stealing passwords, browser cookies and API keys from victims.

Frankie LaPenna fought three robots in a cage, including two modified EngineAI T800 humanoids that can kick with up to 850 pounds of force..

MacSync malware hides malicious commands inside iCloud calendar events to download additional payloads onto infected Macs without raising suspicion.

Joseph Holycross dismissed his racing heart for nearly two years until his Samsung Galaxy Watch detected atrial fibrillation and changed everything.

Home title fraud begins when criminals forge your signature on a deed. Here is how to check your own property records and set up free alerts.

Jeffrey Ladish, a former Anthropic security team member, warns AI agents are colluding and hacking with no reliable solution to keep them in check.

Instinct Concierge and Meta Muse can now place phone calls to businesses on your behalf, but the privacy and data access tradeoffs are significant.

Olivia Moore spent $100 to create a fake RushTok influencer using ChatGPT and MiniMax, and thousands of Bama Rush fans couldn't tell the difference.

RatHat Android malware uses AI to steal banking credentials, intercept two-factor authentication codes and reconstruct your PIN from touch inputs.

The Fox News AI Newsletter covers the latest artificial intelligence technology advancements, including the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

Apple and Google password managers can flag compromised, weak and reused passwords on your phone before credential stuffing attacks can strike.

Researcher Peter Garrigan says Moonshot AI's Kimi model was manipulated into providing instructions for biological weapons and assassination plans.

iPhone, Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy phones now offer call screening that asks unknown callers to identify themselves before your phone rings.

Ransomware can lock your irreplaceable photos and documents in seconds. A tested backup strategy and stronger cybersecurity habits are your best defense.

ShinyHunters claims it breached FBIJobs.gov and stole Social Security numbers, home addresses and sensitive assignment details of FBI personnel.

Find My iPhone, Google Find Hub and Samsung Find have critical tracking settings to enable now, before your phone ever goes missing or stolen.

The FTC proposed a new enforcement policy on personalized pricing, warning companies that hide how personal data shapes the prices shoppers see.

The $250 million Apple Siri AI settlement is now accepting claims, with eligible iPhone owners potentially receiving up to $95 per device.

ShareAScan turns T-shirts into scannable digital business cards with QR codes that link to profiles the owner can update anytime they choose.

BragJack research reveals how a single malicious browser extension could hijack Gemini, Perplexity Comet and Edge AI agents with zero clicks.