Professor reaches ‘healthy weight’ on junk food diet

The nutrition professor who undertook a calorie-controlled diet based on high-fat snack foods has lost 27 pounds in ten weeks, bringing his weight into the ‘normal’ range, according to the Facebook page tracking his progress.

Mark Haub is a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, and teaches a course in energy balance and obesity. He said he wanted to show that by restricting his caloric intake to 1,800 calories a day, it was possible to lose weight, even while consuming foods such as peanut butter-chocolate bars, chocolate cake rolls, breakfast pizza, donuts and sugared cereal.

The professor’s body mass index has fallen from 28.8 to 24.9.

He told FoodNavigator-USA last month that although he is eating (small) portions of junk foods, the diet was not intended to endorse any particular diet, rather to highlight that there is no strong definition of healthy weight loss, and to challenge preconceptions about obesity and diet-friendly foods.