If you've always struggled with your weight, then weight loss diets are definitely a good thing. Or they can be a nightmare! Talk to people who've tried various weight loss diets and you'll certainly get a wide range of opinions. Some people will be glad to rave about their chosen diet plan, while others will dismiss all weight loss diets as useless. But if you want to lose some weight, the reality is that some form of weight loss diet is likely to be your best option.

In the last few decades, weight loss diets have become their own, massive industry. It's not easy to pinpoint exactly when this trend began, but somewhere around the seventies is a good estimate. It was around this time that the first weight loss diets started to appear on a large scale. For a number of decades prior to that, the US economy had been very stable, people were earning good wages and most Americans were enjoying a high standard of living.

The results were inevitable - waistlines began to expand. So for those people who were also image conscious, weight loss diets began to appear. To begin with, many diet plans focused more on what not to eat, rather than ideas for a healthy, balanced diet. So initially results were reasonably poor. It's hard to imagine, but at that time the area of food, nutrition and diet was relatively new, so there weren't many qualified professionals offering sound advice.

It was also a time when the woman of the house was expected to control the food consumed in the house. If she was concerned about her husband's expanding midriff, then she generally did this by gradually eliminating foods that were considered weight-increasing foods. It was strictly a hit and miss situation, with little known about eating a balanced diet, rather than just avoiding certain foods.

In the early eighties the industry began to mature. Governments were beginning to recognize that obesity was beginning to develop into a serious health issue, and medical professionals were also getting concerned. Around one in four Americans was clinically obese, giving weight loss practitioners plenty of ready and willing subjects to work with.

Unfortunately it was also the time when fad diets began to appear, preying on people who wanted a quick fix for their problem. Over time this plethora of fads has expanded and become more sophisticated. Calorie counting became popular, and terms like body fat analysis and lean muscle weight began to enter everyday vocabulary.

The industry grew and expanded, but in the twenty first century it's become clear that fads come and go, with very mixed success. Nowadays experts believe that the key is to mix a healthy balanced diet and regular exercise, rather than jumping on the latest weight loss bandwagon. Moderation is the secret, and you don't need to spend thousands to find that out.