Discussion.
This questionnaire was used as a realistic view to how many people in this area took part in fad diets. The questionnaire was held personally with individuals. I chose to do this because although you can post questionnaires and reach many people, the response rate is extremely low. So to increase the response rate, I did the questionnaires on a face-to-face basis. I chose to use purposive sampling in order to target females, who are more susceptible to dieting. The questionnaire consisted of both open and closed ended questions.
Quantitative Data.
This quantitative secondary data shows that over 60% of people that took the questionnaire did not believe that fad diets help towards weight loss and that most people believed that it was mainly average or healthy to be on fad diets. No one said that they thought they were healthy.
Despite 25 people out of 42 people being on a fad diet 10 people out of 20 were not sure what the health dangers were on the diets they were on.
The most common fad diet at the moment is the Atkins diet with 57% of people either on it or that have been on it.
The age range with the most people to be on fad diets is the 31-40 age range. Shockingly, the next highest was 21-25, and it seems that most of these people stayed on these diets for a staggering 7-12 months. The majority of people's health was affected either during the diet or after the diet, most of the health effects were weight gain, tiredness, dizziness and sickness.
Qualitative Data.
The Internet and literature from the library were used in order to collect secondary qualitative data to confirm what the lack of essential parts of our diets could cause. This had to be taken into account as many of the participants in the questionnaire may have felt extremely uncomfortable in giving out particular details.
It was found in the case of the most popular diet, Atkins, that low carbohydrate diets can cause many health problems.
