The diet product industry
Weight loss is a huge industry in the United States of America. About 55 million Americans are impelled by the need to lose weight, to be fit and to look stunning. Skipping medical advice and rigorous health recommendations, they jump directly into a short-term diet pill plan. Ideally, for these 55 million, the plan should be fast and last for ever. It is no wonder that the diet industry is a gold mine. Every year diet pills and products are rushed on to the market in order to satisfy and intensify the need to lose weight.
But anyone approaching a short-term diet pill program (including diet supplements) should be aware that only five to a maximum of 10 percent are actually successful. This means:
- losing weight
- keeping the new weight for many years afterwards
Of all the products ever made, either pills or dietary supplements, just a small number have proved to have really positive results.
“Dieting” definition
Perhaps no other word has been so discredited in the past 30 years as diet. Dieting means any attempt to lose weight and maintain the achieved weight goal. A diet can be:
- medically supervised (a traditional, standard diet either by an eating regimen and/or pills)
- self-managed diet pills, with no prescription
- managing overweight behavior
- commercial diet organizations or health centers, with no prescription
- weight-loss support groups
- so called fad diets available anywhere, usually online
- well-balanced diets, which also need medical approval
- very low carbohydrate diets
- prepackaged food plans
- diet supplements (where medical recommendation is usually absent).
A negative media campaign
A negative media campaign induces people to believe that fat equals unhealthy, unattractive, unsexy and weak. It equals laziness, failure and danger.
People are manipulated to believe that slim equals good while fat or overweight equals bad. A slim figure is, of course, automatically associated with competence, virtue, health and success. Millions of Americans are the unhappy victims of this tremendous process of manipulation. They suffer from depression. They blame themselves for not being slim. They feel even worse when they try to undertake a diet (no matter which) but regain the lost pounds (the “yo-yo” cycle).
Misinformation is rife
This is what is wrong with the weight-loss industry, either diet pills or dietary supplements. Sometimes manufacturers cover up the real effects and the drawbacks of their products. And many health problems wrongly believed to be caused by obesity or being overweight (high blood pressure, heart problems, high cholesterol, gallbladder dysfunctions) are often caused by the dieting process itself. For instance, eating fats once in a while is strongly recommended for those patients who are confronting gallbladder problems. The bladder is activated just when fat foods are ingested.
It is also unfortunate that diet pills and dietary supplements are available without a preliminary medical evaluation and supervision while dieting. But this is about to change for the better.
Major companies take the matter seriously and go further
If ignored, being overweight and obesity can cause as much disease and death as cigarette smoking. Fortunately, some major pharmaceutical companies are now taking into account the problem of the obesity epidemic problem, as well as the incidence of lifestyle-related diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease. This is important progress in the area of diet products, which are seen as an aid to losing weight and improving health.