fad diet (plural fad diets)
- A restrictive diet whose main goal is short-term weight loss.
1979, Nathan Pritikin, The Pritikin Program for Diet and Exercise:The diet revives old food friends unjustly scorned by fad diets: breads, cereals […]
1981 June 3, Jane E. Brody, “Another Entry in the Annals of Fad Diets”, in New York Times[1]:Last week, another in a seemingly endless stream of fad diets hit the best-seller list. If as many Americans as bought these miraclepromising books actually lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off, the market for future fads would soon disappear.
- A diet that is popular only for a short time, a novelty diet; a fad in food.
2009, Brandi Sentz, Kelli Glass, How to Eat Fried Chicken, and Be Thin Too, Strategic Book Publishing, →ISBN, page 33:Usually a fad diet will take one idea that research has shown to be somewhat beneficial and take it to the extreme. A good example of this is the statement “Eat seaweed at every meal.”