1. The act of restricting one's food intake (or one's intake of particular foods); SYN. dieting.
2. The usual food and drink consumed by an organism (person or animal).
3. A prescribed selection of foods.
The range of foods eaten by an animal, also a particular selection of food, or the overall intake and selection of food for a particular person or people. The basic components of any diet are a group of chemicals: proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water. Different animals require these substances in different proportions, but the necessity of finding and processing an appropriate diet is a very basic drive in animal evolution. For instance, all guts are adapted for digesting and absorbing food, but different guts have adapted to cope with particular diets.
For humans, an adequate diet is one that fulfills the body's nutritional requirements and gives an energy intake proportional to the person's activity level (the average daily requirement is 2,400 calories for men, less for women, more for active children). In the Third World and in famine or poverty areas some 450 million people in the world subsist on fewer than 1,500 calories per day, whereas in the developed countries the average daily intake is 3,300 calories.
Dietary requirements may vary over the life span of an organism, according to whether it is growing, reproducing, highly active, or approaching death. For instance, increased carbohydrate for additional energy, or increased minerals, may be necessary during periods of growth.
A special diet may be recommended for medical reasons, to balance, limit, or increase certain nutrients; undertaken to lose weight, by a reduction in calorie intake or selection of specific foods; or observed on religious, moral, or emotional grounds.
In the UK, some Ł80 million a year (1993) is spent on slimming products and another Ł5.5 million on slimming magazines. In the US, the slimming industry totaled $40 billion a year.

Having relatively few calories; SYN. light, lite, low-cal.

Meeting or convention of the princes and other dignitaries of the Holy Roman (German) Empire, for example, the Diet of Worms 1521 which met to consider the question of Luther’s doctrines and the governance of the empire under Charles V.
A legislative assembly in certain countries (e.g., Japan).

1. To eat sparingly, for health reasons or to lose weight.
2. To follow a regimen or a diet, as for health reasons.