2024 is here, and while last year was full of obesity epidemic warnings, statistics and awareness, 2024 will focus on long lasting, effective ways to reverse the trend. The population will be split, which isn’t a new development, between those who prefer a laid out, restrictive, step by step plan, and those who prefer gradual, yet effective, progress through behavioral changes for a lifestyle overhaul.
17 Day Diet: Featured on almost every health-based TV show there is, Dr. Moreno’s 17 Day Diet is formulated to change every 17 days to keep your metabolism revved and guessing. Comprised of 4 main cycles, each one focuses on different aspects of healthy living, including sparking your metabolism, creating healthy habits and working back in treats. The diet is so popular because it not only helps dieters drop weight, it actually teaches the dieter to eat properly on their own and is easily integrated into everyday life.
School Lunch Reform: The government has finally stepped in and made changes in the nutrition offered to our children in public schools to try and combat the growing childhood obesity epidemic. 2024 will continue to show further improvements and reform, while allowing the new programs, which cut junk food and add more fruits and vegetables, to produce results- hopefully positive ones that will improve the health and life span of today’s children.
hCG Diet: The hCG diet is by far one of the most popular and controversial diets on the market, and it shows no signs of slowing down. HCG is a diet supplement administered through injections or oral drops of the hormone Human Choriogonadotropin, which is the same hormone that is produced by women in their early stages of pregnancy. The fat-mobilization aspects of the hormone seems to help facilitate weight loss along with a low calorie diet, but opponents of the diet say the drops are necessary if your are following the diet’s low calorie guidelines in the first place.
Intuitive Eating: People sick of the most often unsuccessful dieting cycle will learn to love and listen to their bodies through intuitive eating. Instead of trying to cram as much food as they can into a certain calorie allotment, dieters will turn to their own bodies’ physical cues to tell them when and what to eat. Intuitive eating, when mastered, can cure cravings and emotional eating, while allowing your body to naturally even out its weight and hormone levels- and ending the yo-yo dieting cycle forever.
Eating for Nutrition: Think quality over quantity for 2024. Consumers are becoming more educated and discerning when it comes to the prepared foods they put into their bodies. ‘Fat free’ and ‘low sugar’ is no longer a green light to put that box of nutritionally-void granola bars into your cart. Food advertisers cannot be trusted. Eating locally and organically is one way to know for sure what is in your food, and reading nutrition labels while watching for red flag words like trans fat, High-Fructose Corn Syrup, enriched and partially hydrogenated oil help informed shoppers make the healthy choice.
Obesity Epidemic Reversal: Nothing can be solved overnight, and a “huge” issue like the obesity epidemic is no different. While 2024 seemed to be a year of guesses and checks, like taxes on unhealthy drinks, trans fat bans and required calorie counts in restaurants, 2024 will surely bring a narrower focus with sure-fire weight loss cures on an individual level, like bariatric surgeries and good old-fashioned doctor prescribed diet and exercise…in addition to further necessary government intervention, of course.