[Photo by Cai Meng/China Daily]

For many people the words fasting and self-denial conjure up negative images, ones of pallid, listless bodies and of hard-to-bear sacrifice that are out of tune with the zeitgeist of the me generation.

But more and more people are vouching for the physical and mental benefits that drastically cutting the body's food supply for limited, regular periods can bring, including preventing illness and disease and prolonging life.

Of course, the practice of fasting, especially as a way of increasing spiritual awareness, is far from new, being a staple of many religions going back thousands of years. All the more surprising then that in the materialistic 21st century millions are adopting intermittent fasting as a kind of secular sacrament, one that rather than enlightening them will make their bodies lighter, with all the other benefits that this is said to bring.

In China, as elsewhere, the number of intermittent fasters is growing, too. The practice is not exactly new, having been around in its modern form since at least the 1940s. However, the most recent spurt of interest in it can be traced back to a BBC television program three years ago called Eat Fast and Live Longer, during which Michael Mosley, a doctor and journalist, delivered the gospel of the intermittent fast.

Eat what you like five days a week, he in effect declared, and you can still reduce your waistline and become healthier if on the other two days you drastically cut your daily calorie intake, consuming just a quarter of what you normally do, the average being 500 calories for women and 600 for men.

In January 2013, five months after Eat Fast and Live Longer was broadcast, the book The Fast Diet, by Mosley and Mimi Spencer, was published and become a bestseller. In the ensuing two and a half years intermittent fasting has turned into a worldwide publishing phenomenon, with hundreds of books on the subject coming out in English alone. A Chinese translation of The Fast Diet, Qing Duanshi, was published 14 months ago.

In June, in a story headed "Five day 'fasting' diet slows down ageing and may add years to life", the Daily Telegraph in London reported that researchers at the University of Southern California had developed a nutritional regime that calls on followers to eat 34 to 54 percent of their normal calorie intake on five days at least four times a year, with a specific composition of nutrients.

A trial of 19 humans placed on the so-called fasting mimicking diet once a month for five days had shown decreased risk factors and biomarkers for aging, diabetes, cancer and heart disease, and no major adverse side effects, the Telegraph quoted the researchers as saying.

Late last month in China the topic of healthy eating got a fresh dollop of attention thanks to a publicity stunt during which dozens of Western men dressed as Spartan warriors in scanty, figure-hugging costumes, each holding a can of salad, marched through busy streets in central Beijing.

A local company that sells cans of salad it says contain only about 100 to 700 calories each had hired the models to deliver products to customers, celebrating the company's one-year anniversary. When police broke up the gathering, the event grabbed headlines around the world.