163 articles
Curly Girl Method
Curly Girl Method (CGM), created by Lorraine Massey in Curly Girl: The Handbook (2001), is a sulfate-free, silicone-free, no-heat routine using co-washing and gel styling for wavy, curly, and coily hair, now often modified for scalp health.
DASH diet
DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension): NHLBI-developed eating plan rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy, sodium 2,300 or 1,500 mg/day, lowering blood pressure 5.5/3.0 mm Hg in the original 1997 trial.
Diabetic Diet
Diabetic diet: a prescribed eating regimen for people with diabetes mellitus, formally defined as limiting high-glycemic-index foods (MeSH D003927, 1966). No single official diabetic or ADA diet exists; guidance favors individualized patterns such as Mediterranean and DASH.
Diaphragmatic breathing
Diaphragmatic breathing is a behavioral relaxation technique in which a person deliberately engages the diaphragm to slow breathing to 6–10 breaths per minute, producing abdominal breaths that lower stress and blood pressure.
Diet
Diet (nutrition): habitual food and beverage intake patterns. WHO principles (adequacy, balance, moderation, diversity), quantitative limits on sugars, fat, salt; US Dietary Guidelines since 1980, 2025-2030 edition with inverted pyramid.
Dieting
Dieting, also called a diet plan, is the deliberate restriction of food intake to lose body weight, using calorie counting, macronutrient manipulation, intermittent fasting, or meal replacements.
DIOGENES trial
DiOGenes (Diet, Obesity and Genes) trial, NCT00390637: pan-European randomized trial in eight countries testing high vs low protein and glycemic index ad libitum diets for weight-loss maintenance; higher protein reduced regain.
DIRECT-PLUS trial
DIRECT-PLUS (NCT03020186), an 18-month Israeli randomized trial, tested the green-Mediterranean diet (Mankai, green tea, walnuts, less red meat), which doubled visceral and liver fat loss versus a standard Mediterranean diet despite similar weight loss.
Disordered eating
Disordered eating: problematic eating behaviors and attitudes (restriction, bingeing, purging, chronic dieting) below DSM-5-TR thresholds for anorexia, bulimia, BED, or OSFED; affects roughly 20% of adolescents and athletes, screened with SCOFF, treated with CBT-E.
Dosha (दोष)
Dosha (दोष): the three Ayurvedic bodily principles, vata, pitta, and kapha, whose harmony defines health and imbalance disease; also basis of prakriti constitution types.
Dukan Diet
Dukan Diet (Régime Dukan), a high-protein, low-carb four-phase weight loss plan by French physician Pierre Dukan, published in 2000; trials show greater 12-month weight loss than low-calorie diets but lean mass loss, and Dukan was struck off the French medical register.
Emotional eating
Emotional eating: eating or overeating in response to emotions rather than hunger. Measured with DEBQ, EES, TFEQ questionnaires; scale validity contested; psychological interventions reduce EE (SMD -0.99) and weight (-4.09 kg).
Emotional Freedom Techniques
Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT, tapping), developed by Gary Craig in the 1990s from Callahan's Thought Field Therapy, combines exposure and cognitive therapy with acupoint tapping; meta-analyses show large effects for PTSD, anxiety, and depression versus waitlist, smaller versus active controls.
Energy medicine
Energy medicine: complementary practices based on an invisible biofield or vital energy, including Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, and Healing Touch; unvalidated premise, mixed clinical evidence, strongest signal for pain reduction.
Exfoliation (cosmetology)
Exfoliation (cosmetology), also called chemexfoliation when chemical, removes dead skin cells via mechanical scrubs, microdermabrasion, or hydroxy acid peels; distinguished from medical desquamation by its cosmetic purpose and FDA-supervised professional peels.
Facial
Facial: a noninvasive multi-step skin treatment (cleansing, exfoliation, extraction, mask, moisturizer) performed by aestheticians; distinct from medical procedures like deep peels, injectables, and FDA-regulated microneedling devices.
Fad diet
Fad diet, also called crash diet: an eating plan promoted as the fastest way to lose weight without standard dietetic basis. Evidence shows popular diets produce similar ~5% short-term loss, weight regain, and health risks.
Fart lighting
Fart lighting, or pyroflatulence, is igniting flatus to produce a brief blue flame from gut-produced hydrogen and methane. Feasible only when gas concentrations exceed flammability limits; causes burn injuries and is a surgical hazard.
Fasting
Fasting is abstinence from food or drink for religious, ethical, or health purposes; intermittent fasting forms include ADF, 5:2, and time-restricted eating, which trials show is roughly equal to calorie restriction for weight loss.
Fat-Restricted Diet
A fat-restricted diet is an eating pattern limiting fat to under 30% of daily calories, with saturated fat under 10%, used in obesity care and for pancreatitis.
Ferber method
Ferber method, also called graduated extinction or controlled crying, is a sleep training technique from Richard Ferber's 1985 book, using timed check-ins at increasing intervals to teach infants, typically from 6 months, to self-soothe.
FODMAP
FODMAPs (fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, polyols) are poorly absorbed short-chain carbohydrates; the Monash-developed low FODMAP diet treats IBS via elimination, reintroduction, and personalization phases, with RR 0.69 for global symptoms.
Food and drink prohibitions
Food and drink prohibitions, or food taboos, are religious or cultural bans on specified foods, such as pork in Judaism and Islam, beef in Hinduism, and alcohol in Islam, with documented nutritional effects.
Food Preferences
Food preferences: stable liking and wanting toward specific foods, rooted in innate sweet/salt preference, bitter rejection, and neophobia, shaped by early learning, measured with tools like the 36-item Food Choice Questionnaire across 40+ countries.
Forks Over Knives
Forks Over Knives: 2011 documentary by Lee Fulkerson, executive produced by Brian Wendel, arguing a whole-food plant-based diet can reverse chronic disease; spawned a brand of books, recipes, courses, and a meal planner discontinued in 2026.
Foundation (cosmetics)
Foundation, also known as fond de teint, is a flesh-toned cosmetic applied to the face to even skin tone and conceal imperfections, sold as liquids, creams, and powders.
Freeganism
Freeganism is an anti-consumerist practice of salvaging discarded food, chiefly via dumpster diving, coined by a Food Not Bombs founder in the late 1990s; practitioners also squat, garden guerrilla-style, and avoid paid work.
Frenum piercing
A frenum piercing is a male genital piercing placed through the loose surface tissue on the underside of the penis shaft, second in popularity only to the Prince Albert.
Freshman 15
Freshman 15: the popular belief that first-year college students gain 15 pounds (6.8 kg). Research, including a 2015 meta-analysis, finds an average gain of about 1.36 kg (3 lbs), with only 9.3% gaining 15 pounds.
Fruit salad
Fruit salad: a dish of mixed cut or whole fruits, served plain or dressed. Known in American recipe books since the 1850s; related to fruit cocktail; regulated as fresh-cut produce; includes rujak and ananas chaat variants.