Best Diets for Healthy Eating: The Data
U.S. News asked 22 experts in nutrition and dieting to rate the popular diets below in seven categories, including safety and conformance with widely accepted nutrition guidelines. Best Diets for Healthy Eating combines nutritional completeness and safety into a “healthiness” score of 1 to 5, with safety double-weighted—you can make up for some nutritional deficiencies, but tweaking won't make an unsafe diet safe. See how we did it. To rearrange the rankings based on a certain measure, click that header below.
| Rank | Diet | Healthiness | Nutrition | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 |
DASH Diet
|
4.8 | 4.7 | 4.9 |
| #2 |
TLC Diet
|
4.7 | 4.6 | 4.8 |
| #3 |
Mediterranean Diet
|
4.6 | 4.4 | 4.8 |
| #4 |
Mayo Clinic Diet
|
4.5 | 4.3 | 4.7 |
| #4 |
Volumetrics
|
4.5 | 4.2 | 4.6 |
| #6 | Weight Watchers | 4.4 | 4.1 | 4.6 |
| #7 | Jenny Craig | 4.3 | 4.0 | 4.4 |
| #8 | Ornish Diet | 4.1 | 3.8 | 4.2 |
| #9 | Biggest Loser Diet | 4.0 | 3.8 | 4.1 |
| #9 | Vegetarian Diet | 4.0 | 3.7 | 4.2 |
| #11 | Nutrisystem | 3.9 | 3.7 | 4.0 |
| #12 | Flat Belly Diet | 3.8 | 3.5 | 4.0 |
| #13 | Glycemic-Index Diet | 3.5 | 3.1 | 3.8 |
| #13 | Slim-Fast | 3.5 | 3.4 | 3.6 |
| #13 | Zone Diet | 3.5 | 3.2 | 3.7 |
| #16 | Abs Diet | 3.4 | 3.4 | 3.5 |
| #17 | South Beach Diet | 3.3 | 3.2 | 3.4 |
| #18 | Eco-Atkins | 3.1 | 2.8 | 3.3 |
| #19 | Medifast | 3.0 | 3.1 | 3.0 |
| #19 | Vegan Diet | 3.0 | 2.8 | 3.0 |
| #21 | Macrobiotic Diet | 2.8 | 2.5 | 3.0 |
| #22 | Dukan Diet | 2.2 | 1.9 | 2.3 |
| #22 | Paleo Diet | 2.2 | 2.0 | 2.3 |
| #24 | Atkins | 2.1 | 1.8 | 2.2 |
| #24 | Raw Food Diet | 2.1 | 2.1 | 2.1 |