Weight Loss, Pill Popping, And Fads

Much like the hair loss industry, the companies making their living off the marketing of weight loss plans, pills, and fad diets in the United States are experiencing a growing bottom line, rumors about recessions and economic downturns notwithstanding. Weight loss, pill popping, and fads that advocate grapefruit diets or any other near starvation modes of food ingestion that just as soon set up the consumer for weight gain rather than continued weight loss are legion and although agencies tracking these drugs have found that there are numerous cases each year which connect the death of a dieter directly to the prescription drugs, medicines, over the counter supplements, or fad diet she or he was following, consumers are undeterred.

The market, in the classic supply and demand cycle, is only too happy to give the consumers what they are clamoring for, and as soon as the latest rumor surfaces, there is little that will keep the websites cropping up, seeking to cash in, at bay. Of course, if you were to simply educate the consumers to the facts that in order to lose weight it requires little more than decreasing the amounts of calories ingested while increasing the amounts of calories burned, the odds are good that you might be looking at nodding by bland faces.

With the country’s take on weight loss, pill popping and fads are as American as mom and apple pie and no matter how good your diet plan, if it does not come with a specially formulated herbal supplement, medicine, patch, shake, or special nutrient rich bar, it will most likely not find many takers. This is spilling over into the word of multi level marketing (MLM) which is one of the driving forces behind many herbal supplements which are currently sold on the Internet. While there is nothing wrong with the sale of such supplements, provided that they are safe and not harmful in some way, it is a falsehood to assert that these substances will give the consumer what careful dieting and exercise cannot.

As a matter of fact, this unhealthy attitude that equates weight loss with the need for pills and medicines has done more harm than good and instead of seeking to actively accomplish lasting lifestyle changes that provide at least a chance at making good changes in the eating habits of those who are overweight, even physicians are falling into the trap of suggesting questionable medicine cocktails and prescription medications that might be put to off label use with the hopes of affecting weight loss in obese patients.

Although those who are morbidly obese may indeed require pharmaceutical assistance in addition to lifestyle changes, those who are not at this point will be indeed harmed rather than helped if this trend continues. Reliance on pills – prescription or over the counter – that actively interferes with the responsibility of exercising sound judgment and making healthy decisions will not lead to sustained weight loss but instead to artificially maintained weight control that may be lost when the drug is discontinued or taken off the market.