Dieting Wastes Your Time and Money

Adults should give up on the charade of dieting, writes sociologist Amitai Etzioni. The body we have when we reach adulthood is pretty much the one we're going to keep. We may take off weight here or there, but it always comes back. Think of anyone you know, famous or not, and compare them over a 10-year span, he suggests in a CNN essay. His larger point is to argue that all the wasted time paid to diet schemes and such "deflects attention from the one group in which healthy eating, especially if combined with exercise, can make a significant difference—children, the younger the better."

Start them on healthy habits early, and improve school lunches and gym classes, he writes. "Physicians, dietitians and other public health professionals who determine our health care policies should shift most of their efforts to working with parents. They should not focus on reducing the parents' body mass, but that of their kids." (More dieting stories.)