Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Donate today to give back in celebration of all that #PublicMediaGives. Your contribution will be matched $1 for $1.

Is It Time To End The 'Diet Debates'?

Comparing diets is something of a national pastime in America: pitting the Atkins Diet against the Paleo Diet against the South Beach Diet. It also extends into medical research.

But a provocative new paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association says researchers should stop comparing diets altogether.

Instead, it suggests researchers shift their focus to how to change behavior — forever.

Carey Goldberg, health reporter at WBUR and co-host of its Commonhealth blog, spoke to the lead author of the paper, Sherry Pagoto.

“We need to understand the key to adherence — and it does not appear to be the content of the diet,” Pagoto said. “It’s more of the context of the dieter.”

Guest

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

/

You make NHPR possible.

NHPR is nonprofit and independent. We rely on readers like you to support the local, national, and international coverage on this website. Your support makes this news available to everyone.

Give today. A monthly donation of $5 makes a real difference.