What Athletes are Eating, According to Google 2016 
When it comes to diets, a new wave of interest has been sparked by Prof Tim Noakes, some fanatical, and not always well informed. And athletes are no exception—we have a tendency to view diets as a magic bullet, the missing link between us and an improved performance on the bike. Curious to see the evolution of popular diets, we ran a Google Trends search on four of the most prevalent ones among athletes—Paleo, gluten-free, raw, and ketogenic.
We can see that the Paleo diet’s popularity skyrocketed in 2013, after, NPR suggests, a slew of pro athletes, actors, and musicians touted its effectiveness. And again after the book Paleo Diet found a resurgence.
Gluten-free is has seen a spike in January then-slow-decline path like Paleo, and the less-flashy raw foods diet, but its popularity is still closely tied to celebrity endorsements. There was an uptick in searches last July and August after GF tennis pro Novak Djokovic won Wimbledon, then ate the court’s grass in celebration
