The Top 21 Diet Trends of 2025

Ozempic and semaglutide dominate weight loss conversations online

Ozempic, originally developed for diabetes management, rapidly transitioned into a popular weight loss solution for individuals ranging from severely obese to, more recently, even just mildly overweight. Its widespread adoption mirrors the rise of Botox, becoming a quietly ubiquitous treatment.

Meat-focused diets on the rise

Protein-centric diets like the carnivore and ketovore diets, which echo Paleolithic eating habits, have gained popularity due in part to increasing skepticism towards traditional dietary guidelines.

High-protein everything on the rise as consumers look for any opportunity to gain muscle

Protein powder has been growing in popularity for years, and while it's a good way to add protein to shakes and smoothies, it's not very compatible with preexisting meal habits. Now, everything from high protein deserts, to high protein fast food, and the integration of protein into existing snacks like Quest Chips, are all on the rise.

Large and growing market for weight gain

There’s a supply and demand mismatch—and thus a market opportunity—in the business of helping people reach their ideal weight; but not with weight loss. In fact, Google queries for "how to lose weight" overshadow those for “how to gain weight” by only 6:1. However, the weight loss industry is far more than 6x more competitive and saturated than the weight gain industry: in fact, there are almost 3,000% more apps for losing weight than gaining it.

Companies like Noom, with 45 million users, have been able to build up a large following by helping users lose weight. The company uses an effective signup flow which encourages users to set a deadline, such as a wedding they’ll be attending or even just “summer”, which helps the app not only tune the weight loss program, but also the email drip campaigns. Noom’s focus, though, is exclusively on losing weight—even if users sign up and express the intention to add a few pounds of muscle, the signup workflow uses copy about weight loss.

The weight-gaining market is not only more ripe for opportunity but also more fragmented than the weight-loss market. Some customers are trying to add muscle mass, and look for products like whey protein. Others want to add weight more generally, and they increasingly turn to appetite-stimulating supplements or weight-gain syrups.

Some of these products are carb- and vitamin-rich meal shakes that just add extra calories to diets, but some of them include medications that are used off-label to stimulate appetite. These weight-gaining shakes have health risks, and are often marketed illegally.

Media attention often drives new diet trends. When celebrities were mediated through magazines, TV, and movies, they tended to be thinner, but many popular influencers have a different body type—one popular weight gainer brand, "slim thicc," is named after the body type exemplified by Kim Kardashian, Nicki Minaj, and other celebrities. With more diverse celebrity body types, there's a wider dispersion in diet products that allow people to achieve them.

Personalized nutrition gains popularity as consumers have more data

With more consumers having access to personalized health data, including allergy profiles, DNA, and sleep patterns, the demand for customized nutrition solutions is growing. Consumers are using this detailed information to seek diets that cater specifically to their unique biological and lifestyle needs, making personalized nutrition increasingly popular and accessible.

Meal replacement shakes continue to garner demand as consumers try to fit nutritious meals into increasingly busy days

For many consumers these days, time is the ultimate currency. And while meal replacement shakes have been around since the 1950s, it's the marketing that has shifted to focus on productivity that has given this category a comeback.

Back then, meal replacement products were marketed with great success as weight-loss tools — today’s iterations are marketed instead as healthy meal alternatives to productivity-minded professionals and on-the-go consumers. Metrecal, which led the craze half a century ago, likewise used convenience as a selling point, encouraging customers in one ad to keep the cans in their car’s glove box.

Today’s other category leader, Soylent, first sold itself as the non-food of choice for too-busy-to-eat Silicon Valley workers, but it’s now facing a rising tide of competition.

Huel says its customers include doctors, students, and shift workers on top of fitness buffs and efficiency-obsessed tech executives. The focus is on offering "nutritionally complete" meals rather than low-calorie products — a message that mirrors the broader cultural shift toward health and wellness over weight loss.