Fad Diets Through the Years: The 70s to Today

Fad diets through the years have changed their costumes, but not their script. From vinegar drinks in the 1800s to grapefruit in the 70s, fat free in the 90s and carnivore on social media today, each one promised fast results from one rule, and most people ended up right back where they started.

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Looking back is useful, not just fun. When you see the pattern repeat decade after decade, the next shiny plan gets a lot easier to spot.

This post is part of my fad diets guide, where I break down what a fad diet is and why it keeps pulling people in. Here we take the long view.

Jump to a sectionIn this article7 sections

1. Why Fad Diets Keep Coming Back
2. Fad Diets Through the Years, Decade by Decade
3. What the History of Fad Diets Teaches Us
4. How to Spot the Next One
5. Your This-Week Plan
6. Quick Questions
7. The Bottom Line

Why Fad Diets Keep Coming Back

Fads thrive on a simple promise. Big results, little effort, and a clear villain to blame.

They also arrive at the right moment. A new book, a new trend online or a new season of resolutions creates fresh hope, and fresh hope sells.

A question I hear a lot is, why do these diets work at first? The honest answer is that almost any strict rule cuts calories. Cut carbs or calories hard and your body lets go of stored glycogen and the water bound to it, so the scale drops fast in week one.

That early win feels like proof. It is not. It is mostly water, and it comes back as soon as normal eating returns.

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Fad Diets Through the Years, Decade by Decade

Here is the big picture before we walk through each era.

Decade	Big Fad	Lesson
1800s	Vinegar drinks	Starving the appetite was never health
1920s	Smoking ads	Appetite tricks can carry real harm
1930s	Grapefruit plans	No single food burns fat
1970s	Liquid protein	Very low calorie needs medical care
1980s	Cabbage soup	Monotony loses weight, then fails
1990s	Fat free foods	Sugar quietly took fat’s place
2000s	Low carb revival	Cutting a whole group is hard to keep
2010s	Juice cleanses	Your liver and kidneys already detox
2020s	Carnivore eating	Viral does not mean proven

The 1800s: Vinegar, Chewing and Self Denial

Victorian dieters were surprisingly extreme. Some drank vinegar and water to blunt their appetite, which mostly upset their stomachs and harmed tooth enamel.

Others chewed every bite dozens of times until it was liquid, in the belief that this alone would fix their weight. Slow eating does help fullness, but the extreme version was a fad.

The 1920s and 1930s: Smoke and Grapefruit

In the 1920s, cigarette ads told women to reach for a smoke instead of a sweet. We now know how much harm that advice caused.

The 1930s brought the first wave of grapefruit plans. The idea was that grapefruit had special enzymes that melted fat. It does not. Grapefruit is a lovely, low calorie fruit, and that is the whole story.

The 1950s and 1960s: Diet Pills and Bland Plates

Postwar diet culture leaned on pills, shakes and very bland meal plans. Some early diet pills contained stimulants that later proved risky for the heart.

Cottage cheese and melon plates became the classic diet lunch. Not harmful, but not filling enough to last either.

The 1970s: Grapefruit Returns and Liquid Protein

The grapefruit plan came back, often paired with very low calorie menus. Popular low carb books also took off in this decade.

The darkest chapter was liquid protein. These very low calorie drinks were often made from poor quality protein, and they were linked to dozens of deaths, mostly from heart rhythm problems. It is a hard reminder that extreme restriction without medical supervision can be dangerous.

The 1980s: Cabbage Soup and Strict Menus

The cabbage soup diet promised fast loss in a week by eating mostly one soup. People did lose weight, mostly water, and most of them felt hungry, bloated and miserable.

Strict, day by day menu plans that limited you to a short list of foods were everywhere too. They worked only as long as you could stand them.

The 1990s: The Fat Free Boom

This was the decade fat became the enemy. Supermarket shelves filled with fat free cookies, cakes and snacks.

The catch was that many of those foods replaced fat with sugar and refined starch. People often ate more of them, because the label felt like permission. Weight trends did not improve.

Food combining plans and blood type diets also appeared, with rules that sounded scientific but were not backed by good evidence.

The 2000s: Low Carb Everywhere

Low carb eating roared back. Bread became the new villain, and low carb versions of everything appeared.

This era also brought the baby food diet and a revival of the lemon, maple syrup and cayenne cleanse. Both were very low in calories and protein, and both were hard to keep up for long.

If you want to see how these compare with today’s versions, my list of fad diet examples rates fifteen of them honestly.

The 2010s: Juice, Paleo and Clean Eating

Juice cleanses, detox teas and clean eating took over feeds and shop windows. The core claim was that your body needed help removing toxins.

Your liver and kidneys already do that job well. I cover the evidence in my post on whether juice cleanses work.

Paleo, ketogenic eating and intermittent fasting also became mainstream. These are not all the same kind of trend. Some have real research behind them, which I look at fairly in is keto a fad diet.

The 2020s: Carnivore and Social Media Trends

Today, fads spread through short videos. All meat carnivore eating, one meal a day, celery juice mornings and colored water tricks rise and fall in months.

The speed is new. The pattern is not. A confident person, a dramatic before and after, and a promise that one rule changes everything.

What the History of Fad Diets Teaches Us

When you line up fad diets through the years, a few lessons stand out.

1. The early drop is mostly water. Cutting carbs or calories hard drains glycogen and water first.
2. Restriction backfires. The stricter the rules, the faster most people break them, which is the heart of why crash diets fail.
3. One food is never the answer. Grapefruit, cabbage, celery and vinegar have all had their moment.
4. Villains rotate. Fat, then carbs, then sugar, then seed oils. Real eating is about the whole pattern.
5. Speed is a warning sign. The more dramatic the promise, the more skeptical you should be.
6. Some ideas survive for good reasons. Eating more vegetables, enough protein and fewer ultra processed snacks has outlasted every fad.

How to Spot the Next One

The next fad is already being filmed somewhere. You do not need to memorize its name to see it coming.

Watch for a banned food group, a magic ingredient, a product you must buy, a promise of fast results, and no mention of how you will eat after the plan ends. My guide on how to spot a fad diet walks through ten red flags.

As a NESTA nutrition coach with more than 20 years in health and fitness, I have watched many of these come and go. The ones that last never needed a gimmick.

Your This-Week Plan

Instead of trying the newest trend, try one week of the basics that have outlasted all of them.

1. Build three meals around protein, like eggs, Greek yogurt, fish, chicken, beans or tofu.
2. Add a fist of vegetables or fruit to every meal and most snacks.
3. Keep one food you love in your week, in a normal portion, so nothing feels forbidden.
4. Walk most days, even 15 to 20 minutes after a meal.
5. Protect your sleep, because short nights make every food choice harder.

If you want structure without the gimmicks, my 14-Day No-Gimmicks Weight-Loss Reset gives you a simple daily plan.

Quick Questions

The Bottom Line

Fad diets through the years tell the same story in different outfits. A magic food or a banned food, a fast early drop on the scale, and a return to old habits once the rules get too hard.

Skip the next costume change. Steady meals with protein and plants, daily movement and good sleep have outlasted every trend, and they will outlast the next one too.

This article is for general education and is not medical advice. Very low calorie diets should only be done under medical supervision. If you have diabetes, heart disease, kidney problems, a history of disordered eating or take regular medication, talk with your doctor or a registered dietitian before changing how you eat, and see a doctor if you notice dizziness, fainting, a racing heartbeat or rapid unexplained weight loss.