The diet industry, quite frankly, is one that’s riddled with red flags, myths, and inaccurate claims. It seems like every year there is a new diet trend that tells you to do something stupid to achieve your dream body.

You’d be surprised at how immoral people can be. They will use your body dysmorphia and insecurities to get you to spend money on their diet books or subscribe to their channels.

Thankfully, red flags in the diet industry are now more apparent thanks to social media and Internet accessibility. Today, we’ll be talking to you about how to recognize a good diet from a bad one.

1. Sketchy Scientific Claims

The diet industry is a pretty dramatic one. You’ll often hear bold claims like, “Drink no water to lose a lot of weight fast!” or “Eat tapeworm eggs so they can help you lose weight!” These diet fads usually get debunked pretty quickly and come and go just as fast as the latest fashion trends. They are also very unhealthy and promote losing weight in a very dangerous way.

The reason these so-called scientific claims get away with it is that they base it on scientific research. However, we say this very loosely. Instead of spending months or even years of research to find conclusive evidence like expert dietitians do, they cherry-pick studies and results based on what they want to see. And these studies they cherry-pick usually aren’t tested on human subjects at all—more likely than not, they were tested on lab rats.

So, if you see something that’s too good to be true, it probably is.

2. Self-Promoted Supplements

Many diet books on the shelves today usually come hand-in-hand with supplements. For example, if the diet book is promoting a diet with lots of collagen, they might promote the collagen supplements they produce.

While this has been a business tactic for decades, you need to remember that if they’re promoting themselves with the diet book they’re probably not being very truthful. Either they could be withholding information, or they’re downright lying about how effective their pills are! People will do crazy things for money, you know.

On top of that, supplements don’t usually go through stringent regulations compared to medicines. For all you know, you could just be eating powdered sugar in fancy capsules!

3. Villainized Healthy Foods

If you’ve ever tried losing weight before, then you probably know about the diet industry’s tendency to demonize carbohydrates. They say that if you eat plenty of carbohydrates like rice, bread, cereal, and pasta, your body will convert it to fat and store it around your belly. So, it would make sense that if you want to lose fat around your belly that you stop eating carbohydrates, right?

Wrong! Our bodies need carbohydrates to give us the energy to go about our daily lives. It’s not eating carbohydrates that is bad for us—it’s eating too much of them. But eating too little of it is also bad, which is what the diet industry fails to understand.

And they do this with seemingly everything, not just carbohydrates! Some will say too much water is bad, while others will say too much fiber or too much fruits are too bad too. They’ll villainize everything and leave you confused!

All in all, the key to having a healthy diet is not to cut things out entirely. You won’t last very long in your diet if you cut out foods you love. You just have to mind your portions.

4. Unqualified Authors

Turn the book around and take a look at that excerpt that talks about the author. Are they doctors, dietitians, or scientists? Or are they just fitness coaches, actors, stay-at-home parents, or influencers? Not saying that there’s anything wrong with being part of the latter group, of course, but if you were to get advice from only one, then they shouldn’t be at the top of your list.

You have to remember that fitness isn’t a one-size-fits-all type of thing. Crazy diets and insane workouts may have worked for the latter, but that doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. Skilled professionals whose job it is to research diets and exercise spend years should be trusted way more.

5. Too-Good-to-be-True Promises

Who wouldn’t want to shed 25 pounds of fat or gain 25 pounds of muscle in a week? It’s a dream for some people!

The keyword here is dream.

Because it really is just a dream! The journey to a healthier body is a long one that cannot be achieved in a few days or weeks. You’ll need a lot of time and commitment before you start seeing noticeable changes in your body. It will also take hours of working out and healthy eating—you can’t achieve a healthier lifestyle by just laying around reading diet books.

Believing these extravagant promises also sets you up for failure. If you’re not seeing results that are impossible in the first place, you’ll feel demotivated and end up worse than you were before. And that’s probably the worst of all red flags in the diet industry–making you beat yourself up for something that’s out of your control!

Take things one step at a time and be realistic with your expectations.