Numerous YouTube videos offer instructions, tips, and recipes, but a new fad being spread through YouTube is causing concern.  The Cotton Ball Diet, which a YouTube video promises will offer easy weight loss, is a diet that basically involves ingesting cotton balls soaked in juice.  The diet has become popular with teens that have been posting their own videos of trying to eat cotton balls, such as one user who documented himself following the diet and another young woman in workout gear trying it out without mentioning the diet.

In an analysis of the diet, ABC 10 News calls the diet “disturbing” and “extremely dangerous.”  The problem is that the cotton ball has no vitamins and no minerals, but just sits in the stomach and intestines.  According to a registered dietitian, this is dangerous as it can block the digestive system, resulting in numerous gastrointestinal complications.  The purpose of swallowing cotton balls is to suppress hunger, but the diet will likely have unwanted side effects.

Unfortunately, the problem does not stop at the diet itself.  Rather, the bigger problem could be that all of the fad diets can be easily accessed through YouTube videos, with a lot of them promising unrealistic results.  People believe more things on media, especially adolescents, more than they should.  As a result, watching something on YouTube means that it is real or based in facts.

This is not the first, nor the last, fad diet with strange rules.  Hello Giggles, a blog, identifies some other strange fad diets.  For example, one diet suggests consuming primarily eggs and wine throughout the day.  Another diet is a well-known one that involves a lemonade-type concoction, which the dieter drinks for up to two weeks.  During this time, the dieter is essentially fasting, with the exception of the juice.  Other diets involve eating baby food, grapefruits, and cookies, or basing the meal plan on rations used during World War II.

According to WebMD, fad diets are popular for a reason.  They appeal to people as a quick solution to a difficult problem that, otherwise, can be a strenuous uphill battle.  Unfortunately, the body does not work well under deprivation.  Just as a car needs the proper gasoline to make it run, a body needs a healthy diet to develop properly. That means the right balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fat — as well as a host of other nutrients.  Fad diets cannot offer sufficient nutrition, which results in a lack of long-term results.