Alabama’s favorite diets, revealed

Flickr user Tella Chen
Flickr user Tella Chen

Do you remember the Atkins diet? What about its newer, more ancient cousin the Paleo diet? Heck I just Googled information on the Keto diet yesterday!

It seems that every few years a new way to look and feel better is promised by someone publishing a book, or setting up a membership program.

A new graphic analysis by Vox reveals the evolution of these types of diets Googled in each metropolitan area.

As you can explore in the maps above, the analysis shows that most Alabamians followed the national trends, embracing low-carbohydrate diets in 2006 and 2009, then moving toward the Gluten Free craze in 2011 and 2015.

The Gluten free diet, Vox points out, isn’t primarily one that helps people lose weight on its own.

“Of course, there are good reasons some people follow a gluten-free diet,” the analysis reads. “Celiac disease is a serious, diagnosable autoimmune condition that causes people’s immune systems to act up whenever they eat gluten. (About 1 percent of Americans have celiac disease.)

“But many more people are surely searching for the diet in order to lose weight. And there’s actually no good evidence that gluten-free eating helps.”