The weight-loss and diet industry is buling as quickly as our waistlines at the moment.

But the question is, if body conscious consumers are happy to continue to buy dieting and weight loss products, why are we facing an obesity crisis? The truth is, no low calorie diet works. If they did, dieters would only need to ingest a single dieting idea and theyd be slim for ever and a day. And of course dieting and weight loss companies would simple kiss goodbye to any repeat business.

But here is the big truth: restricting what you eat will make you fat! Worse still: yo-yo dieting can cause:

• Depression
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol levels

Frequent dieters are 60 per cent more likely to die from heart disease than people who dont starve themselves.

Weight loss by dieting

This is the part that weight loss companies and slimming magazines fail to mention. Diet magazines tell the stories of women (it usually is women) who have lost a lot of weight by following a diet that restricts calorie intake. As the pictures show, these women have lost a mountain of weight, in some cases, purely by changing the portion size of the foods they eat. This, though, is only part of the complex dieting jigsaw, as Geoffrey Cannon explains in his book Dieting Makes You Fat.

Cannon does highlight that in order to lose weight people must burn off more energy than they consume in food and drink each day. But he also feels that there is more to weight loss than that.

In an earlier book of the same name, which he wrote 25 years ago, Cannon suggests that dieting via calorie controlled diets will lead to increases in national obesity levels, something which seems to ring true today.

Dieting makes you fat

Dieting Makes You Fat was ground-breaking a quarter of a century ago, but its message is perhaps even more urgent today. As people are getting fatter (a government report from 2007 predicted that by 2050 most British adults will be obese), the market for weight-loss products is growing. The combined US and European diet and weight loss industry is worth in excess of $100 billion.

So, why don\\\'t diets work? Well simply put, people who undertake dieting usually do so for short term means - look good in teh summer, get slim for a wedding etc. This means they are looking for a quick fix. This short term view means that the dieter will look for the quickest loss possible, the type of loss that only comes with a low calorie diet. They then revert back to their default, with is to eat more. This means the body will quickly gain the weight lost and even gain a little more weight to compensate for the body being in a state of near starvation for a period of time.

Evolution and weight loss

"Throughout history humans have evolved and adapted to survive famine and starvations," explains Cannon. "The people who survived were the people who were best able to, those who had their larders inside themselves, in the form of body fat. A dieting regime will fail, because you\\\\\\\'re training your body to survive famine and starvation better."

So, what then, is the answer to losing weight, if diets are out? Dieting Makes you Fat says there are a lot of people out there who need to lose a lot of weight, without subscribing to the misconception that a thin person is a healthy person, and that fat people are unhealthy.

Dieting Makes You Fat suggests seven golden rules for losing weight, the most salient being, surprise surprise, is to take lots of exercise and eat plenty of fresh, whole foods. It is also suggested that weight loss should be seen as a long term goal rather than a short term means to an end.