Unfortunately humans (and all other animals) have evolved to store fat very, very efficiently. They’ve also evolved an insanely sweet tooth and a penchant for fatty foods. In the wild this makes a lot of sense, if you find something high in sugar or fat you should eat as much of it as you can because you don’t know when you’ll get such a bountiful free lunch again.

It doesn’t quite work like that for humans anymore, we can just nip down Greggs and fill our faces with sugar and fat until our eyes bleed. We’re all naturally lazy too. As an animal you don’t want to expend any energy unnecessarily so we’re predisposed to sitting about getting not thin.

The true answer to slimming down is eat less and move more. It’s that simple. Or it should be, except we hate exercise and salads suck balls. So over the years fad diets have made individuals and companies a lot of cash whilst not really affecting the population’s waistlines. Here’s a few of the weirder ones for you to (not) try.

1) Breatharianism

Well, if you eat nothing but air you are likely to lose weight aren’t you? Simple as that. You’re also likely to fall down the stairs if you get out of bed a bit quick. There are plenty of people who swear by this ridiculous semi-religion of breatharianism, including the nutzoid Barbie wannabe above. She does look thin but she also looks completely mental so…

Also there’s a sinister and slightly dangerous side to starving yourself (who knew?) Verity Linn, 48, was adhering to a 21-day spiritual cleansing course in the Highlands of Scotland. This particular course involved no food and drink for seven days. She was then to continue to abstain for two more weeks with the addition of sips of water.

Linn died from hypothermia and dehydration, aggravated by lack of food.