How diet became a dirty word and what science really says about losing weight

Here’s a sobering statistic: more than 55 per cent of those who begin the year planning to lose weight have given up within six months.

If that sounds like you, don’t despair. Growing evidence suggests that it isn’t just willpower that ruins weight loss plans.

What if dieting doesn’t work and the very act of radically reducing calories to drop kilos triggers a cascade of biological changes that all but guarantee the weight will return the moment you eat normally again?

Obesity researcher Dr Nicholas Fuller, from the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre for global health, says the changes to metabolism brought on by radical dieting can prompt the body to pull every trick it can muster to return to its starting weight. He has a hot tip for anyone with a goal to drop kilos: do not, whatever you do, go on a diet.