The Weight Loss Industry – False Hope? |

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By michael - May, 4th 2014

Do you want to lose weight fast? Do you want immediate results? Do you want the easy way? So, you go for weight-loss or diet pills. Are they really effective? Don’t they have side effects?

So many questions, anxieties and hesitations. Will it really work? Will I benefit from it?

In our society today time is money and we never seem to have enough of it. People who want to lose weight want to lose weight fast and with the least amount of effort. What’s easier than popping several pills a day and watching the weight come off? Recognizing the demand, weight loss companies supply the public with exactly what they need: pills to help them lose weight fast. But the question of ethics arises when you examine the paradoxical dichotomy between the company’s responsibility to the business and the company’s responsibility to the consumers. Ideally, the primary focus or interest of a pharmaceutical company should be making remedies to improve the quality of life and health of their consumers. However, when weight loss companies become more concerned with profits – helping people lose weight safely and effectively become less of a priority. Pharmaceutical companies take the opportunity to capitalize on the diet frenzy by offering the public poorly tested and poorly researched products that can lead to rapid weight loss, but in no way promote a healthy lifestyle. (www.usc.edu/org/InsightBusiness)

The diet industry reached 61 BILLION dollars in 2013 in the United States alone, but people are fatter than ever. Between magic pills, diet food, and commercial weight loss plans, the obesity epidemic is a HUGE business.

Despite all of the do-good advertising and the inspiring slogans, the secret is, the diet industry doesn’t actually want you to lose weight, at least not for the long term. A customer who fails to maintain weight loss ends up being a long-term customer, contributing to the business’s bottom line. Richard Samber, the former Finance Director for Weight Watchers, was questioned about the company’s 16 percent success rate after five years. Get ready….he explained “that the business is successful ‘because the other 84 percent have to come back and do it again. That’s where your business comes from.’” (source)

So basically, your failure means their success.

If you lose weight and keep it off, …

As far as I can remember, I had been a chubby child, teenager and adult. I tried drinking diet pills. I’ve yo-yo dieted. I have gained and lost and gained again. I tried the “after six diet.” I cut my rice intake. I forego drinking softdrinks. It had been a struggle wanting to lose weight. Until I realized that I only needed to eat the right kinds of food to nourish my body.

Most of the food cooked by our mothers and the ones we eat at restaurants are indeed delicious and irresistible. But there’s one thing I learned and that is discipline. It is the discipline to resist the food that is not good for our bodies and to eat only the right amount and not to binge.

Aside from eating real food without all the artificial nutrition attached to it, exercise is still top priority. It has to become a way of life. If you live a sedentary life then for sure all the food you eat will stretch your clothing and wallet.