There is no denying that we are living in a society that is becoming increasingly obsessed with our physical appearance.  The pressure to be in great shape, look good and stay young forever is very, very present. 

With summer just around the corner, the vast majority of people want to be in the best shape possible. Healthy eating and exercising start to become more important in order to shed those winter kilos. It’s time to break those old winter habits, watch what you eat a little more, and cut down on what is deemed “unhealthy” in order to slim down. 

One thing is to try to slim down, and the other is to become obsessed or go to extremes. We only have to open Instagram or TikTok to find thousands of posts about “good foods” and “bad foods”, diets, supplements, and workouts. Social media is feeding the diet culture.

I am sure you have all seen those “fad diets” on social media where people are openly promoting that they lost 5 kilos in five days,  just by eating bananas or by trying the “pineapple diet”, “the cabbage soup diet”, or the “smoothie diet”, or whatever nonsense. Can you imagine anything worse than depriving yourself of all other foods than a banana, for example, for 5 days or more? I mean, I like bananas but that’s not the point. That is certainly not healthy. Anything that restricts your diet in such an extreme way must lead to people pigging out in the end and piling all the weight back on. It can’t be good for them mentally or physically. 

The problem is that on social media these people promoting these fad diets are not even nutritionists or dieticians and they are giving quite frankly very dangerous advice. The reality is that many of these influencers are being paid to spread this false news, to push certain workout programmes, diets, or vitamin supplements. People can’t differentiate between sound advice and totally false/ fake information easily, they just want to lose weight and look good any way they can. They will go to any lengths. 

My advice is to steer clear of all the social media hype. We all know what a healthy diet includes. We don’t need any “instamiracles”. 

We just need to remember to eat a healthy balanced diet, burn off more calories than we consume, and…

“Eat your breakfast, share your lunch with a friend, and give dinner to your enemy.” 

TEXT VOCABULARY

To be in great shape - to be in good physical condition

To shed - to lose - to get rid of

Break a habit/habits - to stop doing something you repeatedly do

Watch what you eat - to be mindful about / careful with what you are eating 

Cut down on something - to reduce

To be deemed (not included in the text in the end!)- to be considered

To slim down - to become thinner

Nonsense - rubbish

Fad diets- a diet that is very popular for a short time

Depriving - to deprive - to not allow someone something

To pig out (slang) - to eat a lot of food at once  / to eat in excess 

To pile the weight back on - to regain all the weight lost

Frankly - honestly

Push - to promote something aggressively 

Spread - to spread information/rumours - to tell a lot of people about something

Sound advice - good advice

To steer clear of + ING - to avoid 

EXTRA LISTENING

Listen to this TED talk about how to spot a fad diet.

HOW TO SPOT A FAD DIET (British English)

COMMON MISTAKES

Aspect / Appearance

Many people use the word “aspect” to refer to physical appearance. It’s incorrect. 

Aspect actually means one part of a situation, problem, or subject. 

One aspect of her job is dealing with angry clients. 

Appearance - Appearance /əˈpɪərəns/, not “appearience”

The way something or someone looks. Be careful with the pronunciation.

Habits/Customs

Habits - are something that we do very frequently and can be difficult to give up. 

Eating habits

If she wants to lose weight, she needs to change her eating habits. 

Customs are inherent to a culture - a usual way of doing things in a country. 

Siesta is a well-known Spanish custom. 

GRAMMAR HOSPITAL: Deductions and logical conclusions

He must be fit and healthy. His diet is so healthy and he goes to the gym three times a week. 

MUST is used to make a deduction/ logical conclusion when the sentence is positive. 

However, a deduction / logical conclusion when the sentence is negative is not “mustn’t”, it is CAN’TThat cabbage soup fad diet can’t be good for you. Restricting foods is a bad idea. 

Can you find the two sentences in the text/audio that are deductions? 

Fancy Joining our Woodside Weekly Telegram Group?

As some of you may know, if you are a paying subscriber to the newsletter you have the option to join the Woodside Weekly Telegram group to interact with others, find speaking partners and practice your speaking. It’s a great way to practice your listening and speaking and interact with others in English!

*If you are a paying subscriber and want access just send me a DM/email and you will be added to the group.

Here are some suggested questions for the Telegram members to talk about in the group, but of course, you can add your own!

* Have you ever been on a fad diet? What was your experience?

* Do you believe that members no social media websites wrongly promote diet advice?

* What do you think should be done about this? Or, do you think that it is down to each individual to decide?

* How do these diet fads affect teenagers?

That’s all for this week folks! Thanks so much for reading and listening. I hope you enjoyed this week’s Woodside Weekly. If you did, please like and share with friends and family. Your support means a lot!

Images courtesy of Canva Pro.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit woodsideenglishonline.substack.com