Anyone embarking on a diet for the first time could be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed at the abundance of diet foods on sale. Supermarket shelves are groaning under the weight of products labeled 'diet', 'fat-free', ‘low-fat’, 'lite' or 'low calorie' which can lead to all sorts of confusion.

Everyone, from the government to celebrities and catwalk models, have been blamed for the current obsession with size zero.

Despite the negative publicity size zero attracts, women still aspire to become thin or thinner than they currently are.Everyone, from the government to celebrities and catwalk models, have been blamed for the current obsession with size zero. Despite the negative publicity size zero attracts, women still aspire to become thin or thinner than they currently are.

Trying to lose weight is never enjoyable and must be one of life's hardest challenges. But it doesn't have to be. For many people, the first diet is never the last, simply because they fall into the same pitfalls time and again.

By avoiding the 10 biggest weight loss mistakes, you're far more likely to make your next diet a success.

Childhood obesity has increased threefold over the last 30 years and is now so prevalent, that today’s youth run a greater risk of dying before their parents.

Around one in three children in the US are either overweight or obese and according to the American Heart Organization, have an 80 percent chance of remaining that way for the rest of their lives.

This not only places them at greater risk of obesity-related health complications, they face an overall reduced life expectancy. Obese children have a greater chance of experiencing one or more of the following obesity-related diseases, most of which can be avoided by changing lifestyle habits.

Sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy dietary habits have helped contribute to the growing prevalence of obesity among adults and children. In the US, a staggering one-third of children are now either overweight or obese.

One of the main contributors to this growing problem is the high fat content found in much of the food consumed by children. Swapping to a low fat diet can significantly help reduce the likelihood of children gaining weight as well as helping them feel fitter and healthier.

Those who hate their chubby thighs and are planning on a spot of liposuction, may want to reconsider their options after reading recent research. According to a new study, fat which is removed from one area of the body using liposuction, will eventually reappear in other areas, leaving the patient with similar levels of fat as before.

The Weight Watchers diet regime has gained worldwide recognition for helping dieters lose weight. With celebrities such as Fran Drescher, Lynn Redgrave and Sarah Ferguson all advocating its benefits, the diet has proved to be a winning formula. But what really makes Weight Watchers stand out from the host of other diets, is their unique Points® system. However, Weight Watchers have given their phenomenally successful points system an overhaul and in November 2010, launched the new POINTS® program.

While the title of this article may be a little exaggerated, it might not be far off the mark for some. For, despite the fact that obesity is rife in the Western world, it seems the bigger we get, the less likely we are to realise it. But how can this be?

 Apparently, it’s all down to who we hang out with, or even the size of the general population around us.

Finding out you have raised cholesterol levels can be a shock, particularly since it can put you at higher risk of developing cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack or stroke. Controlling your cholesterol levels can be done through medication.


However, one of the first suggestions often given by doctors, involves making changes to your diet to see whether this has any effect. Therefore, it's important to understand which foods are known to raise cholesterol levels in the body and actively start restricting them from your diet.

It's not always easy reducing the fat in the diet, but learning how to cook the low fat way is a good place to start. Many people cook using methods they were taught when growing up, which for some, could mean deep frying everything in unhealthy oil.

However, by making a few changes to the cooking methods used, it's possible to considerably reduce fat levels while making a far healthier and tasty meal.

With obesity levels at a record high, too many people have no idea how many calories they should be eating each day to keep them at a healthy weight.

The number of calories each individual needs can vary enormously from person to person, with factors such as weight, height, age, gender and activity levels all taken into consideration. Therefore, it can be particularly beneficial to calculate your daily caloric needs at regular intervals to help keep your weight steady.

Whether you’ve made the decision to try and improve your overall health or you just want to know if you’re a healthy weight, learning how to calculate your body mass index is a good place to start.

The BMI (Body Mass Index) is used by health professionals around the world and is the preferred method for checking whether you're within a healthy weight range for your height.

 There are several methods available for working out your BMI, so just choose whichever you prefer.

After weeks of dieting, many people reach the dreaded weight loss plateau, where the scales refuse to budge. There are several possibilities for this but one common reason is eating too many calories.Once you start losing weight you need to periodically readjust your calorie intake, usually downwards unless you've taken up a highly energetic sport!

Finding out how many calories you need to lose weight is quite straightforward. First, you figure out how many calories you use up in a day, then subtract the amount of calories you want to lose. Don't worry, it's not difficult but it will provide a helpful guide for shifting those stubborn pounds.

Anyone choosing to follow the ‘official’ Mayo Clinic diet can't go far wrong, as long as they stick to it. The Mayo Clinic Diet isn't a diet as such, rather it's more of a healthy eating plan designed to be followed for life and is generally considered one of the most nutritionally sound diets around.

Skinny Chicks Don't Eat Salads

Anyone browsing through the dieting section in a bookstore could be forgiven for wondering how on earth to choose between them?

With the shelves groaning under the sheer volume of diet books, it takes something pretty special to make a book stand out enough to be picked up. In the case of this book, Skinny Chicks Don't Eat Salads, the title is clever, catchy and intriguing. It certainly warrants further investigation.

With ever increasing levels of obesity in the western world, the calorie count of our food is of paramount importance and something we should all pay heed to. After all, it’s the number of calories we consume that determines our weight. So how can you go about finding the amount of calories in foods?

Cooking for a low fat diet doesn’t have to mean the end of tasty meals. Indeed, once you’ve become accustomed to cooking the low fat way, you’ll wonder why you didn’t start earlier. The health benefits of eating a low fat diet are immense but if you’re not used to cooking this way, you may find a few low fat cooking tips will help make your transition a little smoother.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could go to sleep at night only to wake up in the morning several pounds lighter?  As yet there is no magic weight loss formula allowing us to slumber away the pounds. But recent studies have found that our sleep patterns can have a bearing on our weight.

Does this mean we really lose weight while sleeping?

Is there anything more frustrating to a dieter than hitting a weight loss plateau? After diligently following a diet plan and steadily losing weight, the scales now refuse to budge.

That initial weight loss is often enough to keep us motivated but as this slows or even comes to a halt, what should you do?

What’s going on? You’re practically force feeding yourself healthy food in attempts at losing weight, but the pounds won’t budge. Unfortunately, healthy doesn’t necessarily mean low calorie and it’s those calories that are the all important key to losing weight.

It’s unfortunate that many of the higher calorie healthy foods are those we’d quite happily munch on throughout our diet. But these healthy foods often contain either high levels of sugar or fat and therefore are more likely to hinder than help your diet. So if you’re wondering why your weight loss isn’t as fast as you expected, maybe it’s down to eating too many of the healthy, high calorie foods shown here.