Health conscious, figure conscious people all of us experiment with our food to see the impact it has on us emotionally and physically. In fact, look at what the subject of our discussion himself said, "Since taking on this brow-raising food plan, he claimed his weight dropped, his energy levels increased, and his "mental clarity" improved."

But yes, as you pointed, there has been a real increase in "weird" diets in the past 3-4 decades. The internet is one factor. The other major reason for this, I believe, is the increased commercial competition in the food and agriculture industry. In the last 2-3 decades, we've all been bombarded with ads and PR campaigns about organic foods ("eat pure / natural / raw") and superfoods ("eat smart / right") or promotions of old-new crops ("eat what our elders ate") like Millets etc. etc. Then there's the PR campaigns from fast food and processed food industries and the PR campaigns from the instant cooking industry.

However much we would all like to think that we are immune from advertising campaigns, the reality is that it does impact us. So we shouldn't be surprised that people are confused and there has been a rise in eating orders - https://www.yandex.com/search/?text=rise+in+eating+disorders