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Health


THE FAD DIET TO END ALL FAD DIETS

There isn’t much evidence that intermittent fasting leads to lasting weight
loss. Why is it still so popular?

By Yasmin Tayag

Illustration by Matteo Giuseppe Pani. Source: Getty.
May 13, 2024
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In 2012, the BBC aired a documentary that pushed diet culture to a new extreme.
For Eat, Fast, and Live Longer, the British journalist Michael Mosley
experimented with eating normally for five days each week and then dramatically
less for two, usually having only breakfast. After five weeks, he’d lost more
than 14 pounds, and his cholesterol and blood-sugar levels had significantly
improved. The documentary, and the international best-selling book that
followed, set the stage for the next great fad diet: intermittent fasting.



Intermittent fasting has become far more than just a fad, like the Atkins and
grapefruit diets before it. The diet remains popular more than a decade later:
By one count, 12 percent of Americans practiced it last year. Intermittent
fasting has piqued the interest of Silicon Valley bros, college kids, and older
people alike, and for reasons that go beyond weight loss: The diet is used to
help control blood sugar and is held up as a productivity hack because of its
purported effects on cognitive performance, energy levels, and mood.

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Yasmin Tayag is a staff writer at The Atlantic.