Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figure

1. Introduction

2. Objective & Research Question

1)

Which fad diets are most common among office workers in Ulaanbaatar?

2)

What factors influence them to start a diet?

3)

How many people have achieved the desired result with the fad diet?

4)

What is the reason why people do not take the advice of a dietician or nutritionist on diets?

3. Research Method

4. Result

Fad Diets Use

More than two-thirds of the participants reported going on a fad diet. Of the 50 (32.89%) participants who tried a fad diet, 86% were female and 14% were male. Regarding the age of the participants who followed fad diets, over half of the participants (52%) were aged between 35 and 64, and 48% were between 18 and 34 years old. See Table 3.

40% of participants tried the ketogenic diet, while 44% followed other diets including intermittent fasting (n=9), Japanese diet (n=4), vegan/vegetarian (n=3), paleo (n=1), and dukan (n=1). Of the participants who followed the fad diet, 60% stayed on the diet for four weeks or less, 22% were on the diet for between one month and four months, and only 22% consistently followed it above 6 months. The influence of social media (24%), and other things (26%) had an almost equal impact on the use of fad diets. Specifically, the influence of person to person (50%) was commonly reported as a motivating factor for fad diets use. The participants reported some type of influence on fad diets use, such as health professionals (n=4), TV and magazines (n=2), and TV (n=1). In addition, the majority of participants (68%) reported that they achieved their desired result, and only 18% of participants experienced side effects during the fad diet. See Table 2.

A gender comparison shows that almost the same percentage of men and women adhered to the ketogenic diet (43% and 40% respectively), while the Atkins diet and the gluten-free diet were higher among women (2% and 16% respectively). A lower percentage of women adhered to the diet for longer than 6 months (16%) than men (29%). In addition, men tended to achieve the desired result in a higher percentage (71% men and 67% women respectively). Among dieting males, 57% of respondents said that person to person influence was a greater motivating factor for adopting diets. It can be observed that the side effects of fad diets were more likely to be reported by women than men (14% men and 19% women respectively). See Table 2.

A comparison between the duration of the fad diets and the percentage of achieving the desired result shows that respondents who followed the fad diet for more than one month were more likely to achieve the desired result than respondents who followed the diet for less than one month. See Figure 1.

Table 2. The distribution of participants who followed fad diets.

Table 2. The distribution of participants who followed fad diets.

Questions		Males N=7 (%)	Females N=43 (%)	Total N=50 (%)
Type of fad diets	Keto	43	40	40
	Atkins	-	2	2
	Gluten-free	-	16	14
	Other	57	42	44
The duration of fad diets	0 – 4 weeks	57	60	60
	1 – 4 months	14	23	22
	Above 6 months	29	16	18
Achieve the desired results	Yes	71	67	68
	No	29	33	32
Impacting fad diets use	Social media	14	26	24
	Person	57	49	50
	Other	29	26	26
Side effects	Yes	14	19	18
	No	86	81	82

Differences and Associations between Fad Diets Use and Variables

Chi-square tests were conducted to examine differences between users and non-users of diets in terms of gender, age, satisfaction with body image or current weight, smoking, marital status, and so on. Fad diet users and non-users differed by gender (p = .003), satisfaction with current weight (p <.000) and BMI (p= .021). There were no significant differences between users and non-users of diets in terms of age (p = .492), education level (p = .814), marital status (p = .573) and frequency of social media use (p = .752). See Table 3.

Table 3. Differences between fad diets users and non-users in gender, age, body image satisfaction, smoking, marital status, BMI, and frequency of social media use.

Table 3. Differences between fad diets users and non-users in gender, age, body image satisfaction, smoking, marital status, BMI, and frequency of social media use.

Variable	Fad diets						P-value
	Yes		No		Total
	n	(%)	n	(%)	n	(%)
Gender
Male	7	4.61	38	25.00	45	29.61
Female	43	28.29	64	42.11	107	70.39
							.003
Age
18 - 34	24	15.79	55	36.18	79	51.97
35 - 64	26	17.11	47	30.92	73	48.03
							.492
Level of education
No post-high school	5	10	9	8.82	14	9.21
Post-high school	45	90	93	91.18	138	90.79
							.774
Smoking
Yes	8	5.26	31	20.39	39	25.66
No	42	27.63	71	46.71	113	74.34
							.056
Marital status
Not married	22	14.47	40	26.32	62	40.79
Married	28	18.42	62	40.79	90	59.21
							.573
BMI
Underweight & Normal weight	21	13.82	63	41.45	84	55.26
Overweight & Obese	29	19.08	39	25.66	68	44.74
							.021
Satisfaction with current weight and body image
Yes	16	10.53	68	44.74	84	55.26
No	34	22.37	34	22.37	68	44.74
							.000
Frequency of social media use
Daily	47	30.92	93	61.18	140	92.11
3 - 5 days a week	3	1.97	9	5.92	12	7.89
							.752

Logistic regression was then performed to examine the correlation between fad diet users and gender, age, body image satisfaction, smoking, marital status, BMI and frequency of social media use. Use of fad diets was positively correlated with several variables, including gender (p = .020) and satisfaction with current weight (p = .006). Age (p = .875), education level (p = .972), smoking (p = .215), marital status (p = .314), BMI (p = .127) and frequency of social media use (p = .871) were not related to diet use. See Table 4.

The odds of using the fad diet were 3.391 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.340 – 8.584) times greater among women than among men. In addition, participants who were dissatisfied with their body image and weight were more likely to use a fad diet (OR, 4.053; 95% CI, 1.933 - 8.499) than other participants. See Table 5.

5. Discussion

Fad Diets Use

When genders were observed, the proportion of diet chosen by men and women was almost equal. The ketogenic diet was by far the most tried fad diet (Table 2). Although this diet was designed almost 100 years ago to treat epilepsy, it is still a popular diet for weight loss today [12,13].

The study found that an increase in the duration of fad diet use is also accompanied by a sharp decrease in the percentage of participants (Table 2). In addition, most participants followed the diet in less than 4 weeks and it was almost the same for both genders. We have shown that these participants are the least likely to achieve the desired outcome compared to other participants. In contrast, participants who tried the diet for longer than a month achieved a higher percentage of the desired result (Figure 1). Previous research shows that as the commitment to diet duration increases, the percentage of participants decreases. The ketogenic diet is also effective for long-term weight loss, but obese individuals are looking for the shortest way to lose weight [14].

Figure 1. Percentage of participants who tried a fad diet that did or did not achieve the desired result.

Figure 1. Percentage of participants who tried a fad diet that did or did not achieve the desired result.

Although the majority of respondents reported experiencing no side effects while dieting, other studies have shown some adverse effects such as inadequate nutrition, regaining lost weight and misuse of fad diets [14,15,16]. In particular, the ketogenic diet most commonly chosen by respondents can cause some side effects. The most common short-term side effect of KD (ketogenic diet) are symptoms such as vomiting, nausea, fatigue, headache, dizziness and insomnia. Moreover, KD (ketogenic diet) can also lead to mineral and vitamin deficiencies, especially selenium deficiency. The long-term side effects of the KD are not yet known [2,12,17].

Table 5 shows that participants who answered that they were dissatisfied with their current body image and weight were more likely to diet (68%) than the other participants. The chi-square test yielded the p-value of 0.006. This suggests that dissatisfaction with weight and body image has a relationship with the use of fad diets. Recent study reports that most young women who follow fad diets have a negative body image and poor nutritional status [7].

6. Conclusions

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