The Diet Zone: A Dangerous Place

Diet Coke, diet Pepsi, diet pills, no-fat diet, vegetable diet… We are surrounded by the word “diet” everywhere we look and listen. We have so easily been attracted by the promise and potential of diet products that we have stopped thinking about what diet products are doing to us. We are paying for products that harm us psychologically and physically（身体上）.

Diet products significantly weaken us psychologically. On one level, we are not allowing our brain to admit that our weight problems lie not in actually losing the weight, but in controlling the consumption of fatty, high-calorie, unhealthy foods. Diet products allow us to jump over the thinking stage and go straight for the scale（秤）instead. All we have to do is to swallow or recognize the word “diet” in food labels.

On another level, diet products have greater psychological effects. Every time we have a zero-calorie drink, we are telling ourselves without our awareness that we don’t have to work to get results. Diet products make people believe that gain comes without pain, and that life can be without resistance and struggle.

The danger of diet products lies not only in the psychological effects they have on us, but also in the physical harm that they cause. Diet foods can indirectly harm our bodies because consuming them instead of healthy foods means we are preventing our bodies from having basic nutrients(营养成分). Diet foods and diet pills contain zero calorie only because the diet industry has created chemicals to produce these wonder products. Diet products may not be nutritional, and the chemical that go into diet products are potentially dangerous.

Now that we are aware of the effects that diet products have on us, it is time to seriously think about buying them. Losing weight lies in the power of minds, not in the power of chemicals. Once we realize this, we will be much better able to resist diet products, and therefore prevent the psychological harm that comes from using them.

71. From Paragraph 1, we learn that ________.

A. diet products fail to bring out people’s potential

B. people have difficulty in choosing diet products

C. diet products are misleading people

D. people are fed up with diet products

72. One psychological effect of diet products is that people tend to _____.

A. try out a variety of diet foods

B. hesitate before they enjoy diet foods

C. pay attention to their own eating habits

D. watch their weight rather than their diet

73. In Paragraph 3, “gain comes without pain” probably means ______.

A. losing weight is effortless

B. it costs a lot to lose weight

C. diet products bring no pain

D. diet products are free from calories

74. Diet products indirectly harm people physically because such products ______.

A. are over-consumed

B. lack basic nutrients

C. are short of chemicals

D. provide too much energy

75. Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?