The Good Plate

Dietitian Chella Po shares why diets are unhealthy and why one should embrace guided nutrition today

- Stephanie Zubiri

“Nutrition does not look the same for everyone, which is a big reason why diets don’t work,” declares Chella Po, a US board registered dietitian and founder of Better Being. Seemingly unbelievable, this striking statement is in fact corroborated by scientific and medical research. In Long-term Weight Loss Maintenance, an article published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, experts claim that nearly 80 per cent to 95 per cent of dieters return to their pre-dieting weight within three years.

Whether it’s the buzzwords of late such as Keto, Paleo and Intermittent Fasting, or the more dated but still popular Atkins and Military regimes, diets tend to propose a blanket set of rules and methods intending to be adopted by anyone. However, when it comes to overall health and nutrition, there is truly no one size fits all solutions. “What is valuable is getting people out of this cycle of constantly dieting and failing because the fad diets often don’t make you healthy anyway,” explains Po. Doing something that’s only meant to last a few weeks or months might not be the most helpful in the big picture. “Dieting” is temporary, which means you are right back where you started once the “diet” is over, and maybe you have a poorer relationship with food, disordered eating habits, nutrient deficiencies and a wonky metabolism and hormones.”