“There was a strong focus on thinness, and many diets promised rapid weight loss with little scientific evidence to support them,” says Sandra Zhang, RDN, LDN, dietitian at the Frances Stern Nutrition Center at Tufts Medical Center. Nutrition science wasn’t as developed in the 1980s as it is now, Zhang points out. As a result, fad diets thrived.
“This is when the Dietary Guidelines for Americans were introduced,” Angelone says. But she says that even those were misinterpreted. “The guideline to limit fat was taken to the extreme of ‘eat as little fat as possible,’ which is when the fat-free craze really began."
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The diet also lacked healthy fats, calcium, iron and vitamin B12, saysJessica Cording, RD, author of The Little Book of Game-Changers. “These are really important nutrients,” she explains. “People who followed this diet put themselves at risk for nutritional deficiencies and also felt really hungry.”
“However, the body doesn’t need specific combinations to properly digest and metabolize nutrients,” she says.
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What Was the Beverly Hills Diet?
The diet was done in phases and relied on a concept that certain nutrients, like carbohydrates and proteins, shouldn’t be combined in the same meal or even eaten in the same day.
The first phase of the diet lasted for 10 days. During that time, followers were encouraged to only eat fruits like pineapple and papaya, before adding in other fruits. Pineapple and papaya contain enzymes to promote digestion and weight loss, according to the diet.
Mazel blamed undigested food that’s “stuck” in the body for weight gain.
“There are ways of, say, confronting your ‘fat person,’ acknowledging and letting go of them, and learning how to embrace your new skinny talk from a skinny voice,” Mazel said in the 1982 interview. Thinness was a big element of the diet. A description from one of Mazel’s books noted how she dropped from 180 to 108 pounds by following her diet.
While the Beverly Hills Diet was embraced by plenty of people, it was widely debunked by the medical community. JAMA called this diet “scientifically unsound and potentially dangerous,” stressing that it was not a “miraculous cure” for obesity.
However, some people ended up in the hospital after following the diet.
It’s not clear exactly when the Beverly Hills Diet fell out of favor, but it eventually petered out. “This was not a good diet,” Cording says.
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Sources:
Sandra Zhang, RDN, LDN, dietitian at the Frances Stern Nutrition Center at Tufts Medical CenterJessica Cording, RD, author of The Little Book of Game-ChangersSonya Angelone, RD, PhD, a former spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and a San Francisco-based dietitianMirkin GB, et al. The Beverly Hills Diet: Dangers of the Newest Weight Loss Fad. JAMA. 1981Judy Mazel Explains How She Came Up with the Beverly Hills Diet, YouTubeBeverly Hills Diet Is Criticized. The New York Times. November 16, 1981Hence then, the article about we asked 3 registered dietitians about the worst 80s diet and they all said the same thing was published today ( ) and is available on Parade ( Saudi Arabia ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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