The Big Crash Diet Experiment
BBC ONE, 8.00PM
Is it time to rethink our attitude to crash dieting? That’s the question posed by this revealing documentary, which assesses the health impact of this extreme approach to weight loss.
Our guide is Dr Javid Abdelmoneim, who along with a raft of health professionals, aims to challenge orthodox beliefs about what some see as nutritionally inadequate eating regimes with only short-term benefits. Abdelmoneim persuades four obese volunteers to give up the food that they love and opt for a scarysounding liquid-only intake of soups and shakes, using scans and blood tests to monitor them over nine weeks. Each of the group has their fair share of weightrelated issues. Portly Catholic priest Paul, for example, has been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, takeaway fan Rebecca believes that she’s in the grip of a fast-food addiction, and secret bingeeater Yolande already has fatty liver disease.
Watching them tackle the programme and shed the pounds is admirable enough, but even more striking is the positive effect that the diet has on their health. In fact, the implications of the results could be a huge money saver for the NHS.