This is the time of year when we all think about a quick-fix diet. Think again. , hardly surprising when few of us have what we might call a "normal" relationship with food, untouched by the constant barrage of diet-related news and a fast-food environment radically different from what it was even a generation ago. We still follow the latest diet fads, because slimming down is hard, tedious work.

They do the biggest business and arguably the greatest harm. Initially, you might lose 5% to 10% of your weight if you try one, . And yo-yo dieting is a Faustian bargain: the whole enterprise gets more and more difficult, so that the same number of pounds. All Big Diet Ideas come with a pricey built-in failure rate, paving the way for the Next Big Diet Idea.

and we all need a spankingly good line in self-delusion, which is, let's be honest, the primary quality necessary for entering into a fast and excessive weight-loss regime. The diet industry trades in distraction and novelty, , men and women, and creating a vicious circle of hopelessness. Whether you have many pounds to lose or just half a stone now is the time to ditch the torments. Go for health and contentment – not anxieties and envy. Though there's no money in this for a diet industry that exploits fat at the same time as it castigates it.

, and complicated plans and paraphernalia just mask what's really required. We all know which foods are bad for us, but sudden and drastic changes to your diet are not good. Give yourself a realistic, healthy and attainable goal, and . Getting some group support is very likely to make any diet more successful. So ignore all the surface diet glitter that distracts your mind from you have to make sensible choices and stick to them over time.

A. Greed and profit drive the diet market
B. has exploited our shame
C. Dieting is pretty much the norm in the west today
D. selling hope to the miserable and desperate
E. hoping for some weight-loss miracle
F. keep a record of your progress
G. Yet fast fad diets are little better than useless
H. the ordinary and inescapable fact that
I. repeat dieters find they have to eat less and for longer to lose
J. but it almost always piles back on
K. We all diet sometimes
L. thought to be overweight