Nearly everyone I know is or has been on a diet at some point. In fact, I've been dieting most of my adult life.

But Slate has a new piece attacking the conventional wisdom that diets are good for you. Pediatrician Sydney Spiesel says that weight loss plans can actually encourage weight gain in the long run.

Gasp! That's heresy, you might say. But his arguments are pretty convincing, based on a paper entitled "Medicare's Search for Obesity Treatments: Diets are not the Answer" done by UCLA's psychology department.

Check out Spiesel's thoughts for yourself and let me know what you think. His article is definitely food for thought, even if it's not exactly what I need to hear when I am craving french fries.

-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com