Outdated Boomer Dieting Trends That Younger Generations Will Never Understand (Thankfully!)

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It's no secret that a toxic diet culture has been trying to control how people view their body size for decades. With the rise of Ozempic and other GLP-1s, celebrity influence and social media have perpetuated the return of an extremely damaging culture of thinness, and we've watched as beauty standards returned to favoring increasingly thin bodies and restrictive diets. However, society's obsession with being thin isn't new. Baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, witnessed wild fad diets of their own. And while millennials and Gen Z are cycling through their own weight loss pressures, boomers were exposed to crash dieting trends that would be unthinkable today. What's worse, some of these diet schemes were even created by medical professionals.

Thankfully, younger generations are less interested in trending diets and more focused on turning their favorite fitness routines into personality traits. In a world dominated by different aesthetics, how someone chooses to work out has become a defining part of their character and interests. Pilates-goers have been dubbed "Pilates princesses," and notably gravitate toward the Balletcore and "clean girl" aesthetics. And while there are definitely problematic tropes attached to these fads, unlike many boomers, younger generations are more likely to see the red flags within restrictive diets. The food trends popularized by boomers in the '70s, '80s, and '90s were harmful and dangerous. Thankfully, they're not garnering the attention of the younger generations today.

The Wine and Eggs Diet is one of the most detrimental dieting trends in recent history. The fad was first published in the best-selling book "Sex and the Single Girl: The Unmarried Woman's Guide to Men" in 1963. However, it was later republished by Vogue in 1977, and claimed to help people lose five pounds in just three days.

For breakfast, dieters were expected to eat one hard-boiled egg, one black coffee, and one glass of white wine. For lunch, their meal was slightly larger, including two eggs, one black coffee, and two glasses of wine. Dinner consisted of five ounces of grilled steak, seasoned with black pepper and lemon juice, one black coffee, and the remaining bottle of wine. Health experts have condemned the diet for focusing on high amounts of protein, dangerously encouraging alcoholism, and for omitting any fruit or vegetables. It's also clear that any boomers following this trend were not getting enough carbs in their diet.

Nowadays, younger generations would find it difficult to understand this crash diet. Regarding the diet's recommended daily dose of wine alone, a 2023 Gallup survey found that alcohol consumption among Gen Z has significantly declined. As younger generations become increasingly aware of the effects of alcohol, they're choosing to drink less, if at all.

The Cabbage Soup Diet of the 1980s was purely centered on — you guessed it — cabbage consumption. The diet encouraged people to eat cabbage soup for seven days in a bid to lose between five and 10 pounds, and participants were allowed to add a different food to their cabbage soup every day. While the fad was never linked to any medical facility or expert, it spread far and wide, becoming a popular option for people trying to lose weight. As dieters rapidly dropped water weight, which was perceived as a successful physical transformation, the trend continued gaining traction.

Nutritionists have since discovered that the Cabbage Soup Diet contained less than 1,000 daily calories and has since been deemed harmful due to its lack of nutritional value. Without the necessary amount of protein, vitamins, carbohydrates, fat, and calories, dieters were left feeling dizzy, tired, bloated, weak, and faint. Like the wine and eggs diet, the unlimited cabbage soup trend is considered a crash diet. A 2006 study by the National Library of Medicine found that these rapid diets can have lasting bodily effects, including reducing a person's metabolism.

But younger generations have demonstrated a significant shift away from dieting and a larger focus on movement. Research has shown that regular physical exercise can lead to lasting health benefits and supports sustainable weight loss. Thus, different exercise methods and classes have become increasingly popular — namely Pilates, ballet, and running.

The Scarsdale Diet emerged in 1979, thanks to American cardiologist Herman Tarnower, who published the book "The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet." While it took the '80s by storm, it's hard to believe that doctors were encouraging such harmful trends.

The Scarsdale diet outlined a two-page plan which limited a person's food intake to just 1,000 calories per day. It was a protein-heavy regimen made up of 43% protein, 22.5% fat, and 34.5% carbohydrates. Dieters were told that the diet improved heart health and were provided with a regimented list of acceptable foods. To really put things into perspective, the meal plan was so strict that it even forbade certain vegetables and legumes, including beans, lentils, and avocados. What's more, Tarnower didn't account for different ages, weights, genders, or movement levels when he was constructing the diet, and it has since been condemned for its unrealistic guarantees.

Today, younger generations are focused less on calorie deficits and more on the quality of food they eat, drastically increasing mindfulness when it comes to grocery quality and the overall supply chain. Data published in 2022 found that customers are more likely to pay extra for healthier, high-quality foods, and the largest consumer group at retailers such as Whole Foods is Millennial women, illustrating a larger shift away from restrictive eating.

In the 1990s, meal-replacement shakes had dieters in a stronghold. These concoctions were self-explanatory: people would drink their calories rather than eat them. During an era characterized by cropped tops and miniskirts, meal-replacement shakes were portrayed as quick fixes. Unsurprisingly, as with other crash diets, those who replaced their meals with liquids found that, upon returning to solid foods, their metabolism had slowed down significantly, and they began quickly regaining weight.

"Liquid meal replacements were heavily promoted as a way to control calories, but they often replaced real meals without addressing hunger, satisfaction or long-term habits," dietitian and nutritionist Talia Follador told Eating Well. Follador went on to explain that fostering a balanced diet, which includes a range of fats, proteins, fiber, and carbohydrates, remains the healthiest way to lose weight.

Meal-replacement shakes are difficult to understand, particularly for many younger consumers who have a newfound obsession with drinking protein shakes. In recent years, everything seems to have added protein, and drinks are being used more and more by young generations to supplement their diets, whether it's as a treat, to improve nourishment, or to replace a meal when on the go. But as nutritional information becomes more accessible, diet culture is shifting more toward sustainability and longevity. Brands like SlimFast were heavily endorsed by celebrities in the 1990s, but younger generations are turning away from brand loyalty and disposable fridge shakes, and adding different sources of protein to their existing diets.

Low-calorie frozen dinners were a major fad in the 1990s. Boomers packed their freezers with extremely low-calorie meals, often containing fewer than 300 calories, and relied on them to help them lose weight. While frozen dinners made for calorie-controlled mealtimes, the dieting trend was essentially futile, as these low-calorie dinners were far from filling. Left hungry after eating their frozen meals, boomers occasionally found themselves eating more than usual. "They're calorie-controlled, which is convenient if you're counting calories, but they're far from filling, so it's not uncommon to need more than one for lunch or dinner," dietitian nutritionist Anne Danahy told Eating Well.

Lean Cuisine was arguably the most popular low-fat frozen food brand in the '80s and '90s. The company launched its lower-calorie frozen meals alternative in 1981, and within its first year of business, sold out across the U.S. The brand marketed its products toward women, surprise surprise, providing them with a booklet that contained a 14-day diet plan. Targeted advertisements promised women that they would lose weight by eating low-calorie dinners and pushed them to control their weight to attract men.

Younger generations of women have not only rejected dieting for the male gaze, but their approach to frozen meals also differs sharply from that of boomers. Amid the cost-of-living crisis, young people are less focused on limiting calories and are more likely to meal prep and freeze food to save money.