Worlds Best Diet: ITV

I thought it would be valuable to review a weight loss programme that recently aired on ITV, Tuesdays 8pm called The World's Best Diet.

The average British diet is making us fat and unhealthy, with nearly one in four of us in the UK diagnosed clinically obese. In contrast, scientific survey done on other countries show lower disease rates and better quality of life. So what’s their secret?

In the new two-part factual series World’s Best Diet, presenter Jonathan Maitland and four celebrities All set out on a journey to discover why these other cultures are bucking the obesity trend and how they compare to the UK.

Meet the celebrities:

Linda Robson,

Birds of A Feather star Linda Robson, who is classified as obese at 13 stone 11 pounds, explains her attitude towards food. “I wake up in the morning and I’m worried about what I’m having for a lunch and then as I am having lunch I’m worried about dinner that night.”

“I feel heavy…I feel sluggish. I just want to feel a bit lighter and feel a bit healthier.

Destination: Japan = fish and rice diet

Cheryl Baker,

Buck’s Fizz singer Cheryl Baker has always felt fat. “I’ve always been the big girl in Bucks Fizz. There was this advert years ago “can you pinch an inch?” I can pinch loads. I can pinch yards and I hate it.” Dietician Dr Catherine Collins reveals that Cheryl would be in the healthier range if she lost 10 centimetres off her waist.

Destination: Kerala, in southern India = vegetarian diet.

 Darren Gough

Former cricketer and champion dancer Darren Gough may not look overweight at first glance, but his measurements put him in the obese category.

“I’ve suddenly retired and I need to nip it in the bud now before it gets out of hand,” he says. “I like my drink…I like my food…It’s the snacking for me and when I have a lump of cheese it’s a proper lump not just a thin slice.”

Destination: Italy = Mediterranean diet.

Carole Malone 

she’s been on “every diet known to man” but still measures in a borderline obese. “I can’t be hurtling towards retirement eating donuts or I won’t make it.”

Destination: LA = low carb diet.

Jonathan Maitland - Presenter

Admits to a big dessert and cake problem, is weighed and measured. Catherine gives him the bad news. “This shows that you have 50 per cent more body fat than you should have and it’s concentrated around your middle. You’re about 16 stone 2 and you’re technically obese and because you’re obese you’re at risk of heart disease and stroke and some cancers and definitely increased risk of diabetes.”

Destination: Britain =  post war British cuisine.

From raw fish and rice in Japan to the low-carb diet in California; from vegetarian curry in India to the Mediterranean diet in Italy – each of the celebrities travel to a different nation, immersing themselves in the local cultural attitude towards healthy living and learning to cook their food. They are then challenged to maintain their regime when they return to the UK for a further five weeks.

In part two, the results were revealed and the winner announced. Success was based on only 2 simple markers weight loss and cholesterol -

1st place Darren Gough = Italian diet

2nd place Carol Malone (lost the most weight)  = Californian organic low carb diet

3rd place Linda Robson = Japanese diet

4th place Jonathan Maitland = British post war diet

5th place Cheryl Baker = Indian vegtarian diet

This was an interesting programme mostly because of how simplisitc the approach was. They only had 1 week in each country to learn how to prepare their local foods, but it was clear they only grasped one or two dishes, hardly sufficient to judge a whole countries diet on! From a scientific stand point one person over 6 weeks to judge a dietary method by is so clinically insignificant it isn't even worth talking about. After they returned home they were asked to continue their eating style for a further 5 weeks. It was clear there was some adherence problems from all the 5 celebrities. There were no food diaries recorded or any accountability or measure of how successfully they managed to sustain their eating habits.

Once the results were revealed it was almost embarrassing to see how they graded the whole experience. It was purely done on weight loss success, but when the low carb, higher fat and protein approach pulled the best weight loss, they had to drag in cholesterol markers to show that others had better cholesterol and thats why that diet couldn't be the winner. But they did not reveal the cholesterol levels of everyone on the programme or the many ways cholesterol can be measured. They should have included their total triglyceride levels, their LDL, and HDL ratio, their Lp(a) markers and C reactive protein levels to provide any decent indication of CHD risk. These were ignored but claimed to have deteriorated in the low carb approach. Why not measure a few more indications for success like blood glucose control, hormone balance, digestive health markers, mood states, energy levels, metabolic rate, mental focus and concentration, total weight, body fat levels, circumferential measurements and fitness capacity. It would be a huge ask to test all of these on a single television programme, but there are so many other ways to determine how successful these diets were. It is interesting to note that the youngest and fittest individual in this programme turned out to be the winner.

Interestingly we are told that the Italian diet is healthy because they have lower rates of heart disease, which is true. Recent statisitcs from the British Heart Foundation suggest they have 2.5 times lower CHD rates than in the UK. However, another major study found that the Italians average a body mass index of 26.7 which is within the category identified as overweight! This is actually slightly higher than the UK which has an average BMI in the same study of 26.6! Research by the Food and Agricultural Organisation shows that Italy eat only 1.7% less saturated fat than the UK (11.8% versus 13.5%) and still nearly 2% in excess of current guidelines of a maximum of 10%. Total fat consumption in Italy accounts for more than 38% calories over 8% over the maximum recommended level. This is the 8th highest in Europe. The UK has an average fat consumption of around 36% which is 19th in Europe. In 1995 the World Health Organisation found Italy to have the 3rd highest diabetes rate in Europe. So as you can see when you set out to say a diet is healthy and only determine that by CHD rates you are missing a significant proportion of the health related information.

I hope that this programme has not influenced too many people to make incorrect assumptions about the dietary regimes that these countries used to live by for genereations. It is certain that this programme did not successfully demonstrate what truly is the best diet in the world!