CREDIT: THINKSTOCK
A hamburger combo might not fit every diet plan.

No matter where you turn you are faced with the temptations of fast food and the pressures from the media to look a certain way. Any magazine you pick up these days you will likely find a page that will teach you a new trick to lose weight or get abs fast. People are looking for a quick fix that will get them the results they want with minimal effort, but is that realistic?

As students, it can be difficult to make healthy choices when it comes to food. Being bombarded with work and a hectic schedule means that eating a quick meal on the go is often the only choice there is.

Erika Gossmann, a Food and Nutrition student at Fanshawe, is currently studying these kinds of issues. “As a college student, I know what it's like to have to worry about food choices and body image on a daily basis,” she said. “Making better food choices can be stressful, and going on a diet can seem almost impossible while in school, and maintaining a social life.”

Gossmann went on to explain that one of the most popular fad diets out there right now is the lowcarb diet. “It was almost 150 years ago that Dr. William Morgan, a medical doctor in London, published a book about diabetes, promoting low carbohydrate diets,” Gossmann explained. “Previous to this, in 1863 William Banting lost weight by avoiding bread, butter, milk sugar, beer and potatoes.”

Low carbohydrate diets have been around for over a hundred years, but it was not until the 1990's, with the Atkins Diet, that it exploded into what it is today.

The standard low-carb diet tells us that we should be restricting our carbohydrate intake to only 20 per cent of our daily caloric intake. Canada's national food guide suggests a daily caloric intake of approximately 2,000 calories. Following this diet, that means a person should only be having 400 calories of carbohydrates a day.

To put that into perspective, Gossmann explained, “A Big Mac combo at McDonalds, in terms of carbohydrate intake, contains 147 grams of carbohydrates, which is equivalent to 588 carbs.” Just that one meal — a burger, fries and a Coke — is well over what the lowcarb diet would suggest.

“Atkins generally tells you to maintain a mere 20 grams of net carbs per day, which is approximately 80 calories of carbs per day or the equivalent of a small piece of bread,” Gossmann said. “However the Advanced Nutrition and Human Metabolism states that upon the age of three years old one should not consume less than 130 grams of carbohydrates per day.” This now raises the question: is this diet a healthy choice?

“I personally would say that I am against this kind of dieting because it is not a realistic lifestyle change. I also think that it inflicts a lot of stress on the body, and that it can be very dangerous. Eating a diet very low in carbohydrates leaves the body in a state with very low blood glucose levels, and if this goes on too long it leads to confusion, weakness, dizziness, unconsciousness and eventually death,” she said.

“In the end, challenges occur with every diet, whether it be low carb, low fat, high protein, juicing, cleansing, detoxing — even the cabbage soup diet was popular at one time. Weight loss and healthy eating is on everyone's mind; but as these trends come and go, our health seems to be deteriorating further as time goes on. Rather than taking to an extreme diet, try switching to whole grains as much as possible, including fruits and vegetables in every meal, choosing lean forms of protein, and limiting sweets and soft drinks is a good place to start. Dieting can be a fad, or a lifestyle and low-carbohydrate diets seem to be the most popular of them all, for now.”