10 Ways to Spot Diet Quackery

If you fell off that New Year's diet before the end of January, here's your second chance. March is National Nutrition Month, and what better time to give healthy eating another chance?

Rather than repeat all that stuff you've heard ad nauseam -- eat plenty of greens, smaller portions, blah, blah, blah -- Coupon Sherpa is celebrating this month by recognizing the absolute quackery of Maximum Strength Calorie Control from "Biggest Looser" trainer Jillian Michaels. There's a reason Michael's is facing her third lawsuit related to these pill supplements. They're pure quackery!

Weight loss schemes and devices are the most popular form of nutritional quackery. The millions who seek a painless, effortless way to shed unwanted pounds have made weight loss a multi-billion-dollar industry. Books, fad diets, drugs, special foods and clinics all promise to produce weight loss. But the result is usually either non-existent, temporary or dangerous. The weight is quickly regained and may be even more difficult to lose when the next diet is attempted.

For those who have difficulty separating foolish offers from common sense, here are 10 ways to spot the red signs of quackery.

1. Magic Cures
If the product or diet promises you'll lose half your body weight in weeks, it's probably quackery.

2. Dire Warnings
If there are more stories about the dangers of a product or regimen than there are advertisements, it's probably quackery.

3. Simply Stupid
If the promoters site a complex study or a single study offering simplistic conclusions, it's probably quackery.

4. Dramatic Statements
If advertisements include excessively effusive quotes with clearly Photoshopped before-and-after photos, it's probably quackery.

5. Good vs. Bad
If a diet divides foods into good and bad, without allowing for reasonable cheats, it's probably quackery.

6. We Don't Need No Stinkin' Peers
If the product is recommended on the basis of studies published without peer review (scrutiny from other experts in the same field), it's probably quackery.

7. Faux Nutritionist
If the product or diet is being pushed by someone calling themselves a nutritionist, but they have no credentials or dubious credentials from a non-accredited school, it's probably quackery.

8. Cure Alls
If a remedy includes vibrating chairs, sitting in abandoned uranium mines and such questionable diets as gin-soaked raisins, it's probably quackery.

9. Instant Energy
Expensive drinks and powders won't get you to the gym. If advertising claims a substance or procedure will instantly increase your energy and enhance athletic performance, it's probably quackery.

10. Eat All You Want
If a product advertises you can eat as much as you want and still lose weight, or that it will overcome the aging process, eliminate arthritis and cure cancer, it's definitely quackery.