Word: fads
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...verbal section on standardized tests. Okay, maybe kids won't find the words poltergeist, Quidditch or transfiguration on the SATs anytime soon, but the Potter books have a larger vocabulary than most of the drivel that is published for children nowadays. Compare the Harry Potter series to the last fad in children's books, that formulaic series called Goosebumps, and you'll see what I mean...
Backcountry activities have become extremely trendy, a fad that has been eagerly abetted by Madison Avenue. These days it's impossible to turn on a television or open a magazine without being assaulted by a barrage of ads that use skillfully packaged images of wilderness activities to rev the engine of consumerism. In 1851, when Henry David Thoreau declared, "In wildness is the preservation of the world," he could not have foreseen that wilderness, as an idea, would one day be used to sell everything from SUVs to soda pop. Disconcerting though this development may be, it happens to come...
...next wave of fad diets base their low-carb logic on even stranger theories than insulin or food combining. Peter J. D'Adamo's book Eat Right 4 Your Type advocates diets tailored to your specific blood type. Type O's get to eat red meat. Type A's aren't as lucky; they're stuck with mostly vegetables and fruits. Type A's, however, get to keep using their arteries. D'Adamo sells vitamins for each body type and claims he has got the already skinny Elizabeth Hurley, Hugh Grant and Andy Dick to buy into his logic...
...Monica Lewinsky for Jenny Craig), but they get the approval of dietitians for free. Weight Watchers assigns points for each type of food, so people can sneak some fatty, sugar-filled food into their point allotment. But the program rewards eating vegetables, and especially fiber. "When you have a fad diet, you wind up trading one obsession for another," says Linda Webb Carilli, the company's general manager of corporate affairs. "High-protein diets are not good for women because they leach calcium...
...most of my professional career, I adhered to the generally recognized dictum of weight management. I advised my patients to count their calories and follow a low-fat diet. So when low-carbohydrate diets experienced a resurgence in the mid-'90s, I dismissed them as another fad. But a funny thing began to happen. Many of the people who went on the modern Zone or Atkins diets lost weight, didn't feel deprived, and were more successful in the long term...