The quest for a healthier lifestyle and effective weight management often leads individuals down a path filled with fad diets and unsustainable practices. However, a more balanced and evidence-based approach, rooted in the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) dietary guidelines, offers a promising alternative. This article explores a unique weight-loss journey inspired by the "Regenbogen" diet, a concept developed by students and rooted in the principles of adding nutritious foods rather than restricting them.
The Pitfalls of Fad Diets
Fad diets are popular for a reason, but they are often not very sustainable. The creation of a flashy diet plan that people might actually be willing to try requires stepping away from conventional logic while still maintaining a plan that could bring tangible, if not sustainable, results.
The "Regenbogen" Diet: A Colorful Approach
Senior Mitchell Orzell and his team sought inspiration from the German translation for the word rainbow. The "Regenbogen" diet emerged as the winning entry in a “Shark Tank”-style competition and was inspired by Orzell’s own weight-loss journey. There are no restricted foods in the Regenbogen diet. Instead, the basic premise is to add nutrition foods into one’s current diet by consuming a serving of a certain color-coded fruit or vegetable each day throughout the week. For example, Monday is “red,” so a person would eat a bell pepper and some strawberries. An orange and a carrot would be good choices for “orange” Tuesday. The pattern continues to Sunday, where people are encouraged to use up their leftovers by making a fruit salad or frittata.
“The idea here is that by creating a non-restrictive dieting approach, we can increase compliance with the diet and hopefully begin to replace some of the added sugars, processed carbs and refined foods common in the typical American diet,” Orzell says. An added benefit comes from supplementing more key micronutrients that are found in fruits and vegetables.
The Genesis of an Innovative Diet
Students spent the first few weeks of the semester reviewing several popular fad diets, identifying key components they all shared, while learning about the USDA’s dietary guidelines and their evidence-based recommendations. They then worked in teams to create a fad diet that incorporated aspects of other popular fad diets that make them marketable, such as branding and simple messaging around a core story.
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Each team was required to create a name, logo and branding story for their diet, along with sample dietary pattern examples. The project reaffirmed Orzell’s beliefs about fad diets.
USDA Guidelines as a Foundation
Clinical assistant professor Graczyk, in the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior, School of Public Health and Health Professions, instructed each team not to include classic fad diet pitfalls, like focusing on good and bad foods or eliminating certain food groups or focusing on weight loss and body image. In addition, the diets had to be based on the USDA guidelines. “We were required to keep our diet plan within USDA dietary guidelines, so it could be a bit tricky trying to create something fun and interesting that still made sense,” says Orzell.
Marketing and Presentation Skills
To give the students the tools necessary to develop their fad diets, Graczyk brought in two guest speakers: Natasha Allard, a PhD candidate in the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior, who provided two presentations on marketing and health communication, and Kelsey Wagner, the entrepreneurship training coordinator from Blackstone LaunchPad, who led workshops on public speaking and increasing engagement during presentations. In March, Graczyk held a “Shark Tank”-style competition where each team pitched their diet to their classmates and two “sharks” - Jennifer Temple, professor in the Department of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at UB and Naomi McKay, associate professor of psychology at SUNY Buffalo State University - who judged them on the feasibility of the diet.
From Personal Experience to a Diet Plan
“As we were doing our research, it turned out that the rainbow diet already exists, so we elected to give it a more unique, eye-catching name. The official story, however, involves me following a rainbow to our proverbial pot of gold: the farmers market. After I used the diet to change my wicked eating habits, I developed the Regenbogen diet to help others,” Orzell says.
A Holistic Approach to Wellness
For the rest of the semester, the class is working as a collective team to develop a complete lifestyle plan based on the USDA guidelines while incorporating stress reduction, intuitive eating and movement - all structured around the winning diet.
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E-book Publication and Charitable Giving
It’s all being written and edited by the students, and will be published as an e-book at the end of the semester, for 99 cents. Any money generated from sales will be donated to the National Eating Disorders Association.
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