During Healthy Weight Week, between January 16-22, the annual Slim Chance Awards will take place. The action was started 16 years ago by the organization Healthy Weight Network, as a reaction to the multitude of unsafe products on the market.

As obesity has reached alarming levels becoming a national problem, Americans have come to an obsession regarding weightloss. The incessant rush for “magic” solutions is the cause of a great number of problems related to diet supplements.

The founder of the organization Healthy Weight Network is Frances Berg, a renowned nutritionist. She has been studying obesity and weight interventions for over 20 years. In her books, she sustains and promotes a healthy weight maintenance. Her recommendations go towards maintaining a median line, encouraging the health at any size approach, meaning eating well, healthily and living actively, feeling good regardless of weight. Her latest book, Underage & Overweight, offers solutions and advice to parents regarding healthy weightloss for children, in the form of a seven-points plan.

The worst diet products of 2004 were targeted to specific interest groups: low-carb dieters (speculating on the low-carb craze), people with abdominal fat and women experiencing menopausal weight gain.

2004 worst diet products

Worst Gimmick: Green Tea 300 — green tea patches and green tea bags, a combination claimed to burn fat, supress appetite, speed metabolic rate, without side effects.

Worst Product: CortiSlim — falsely promoted as a weight loss pill that works by reducing cortisol, the stress hormone thus determining fat reduction, especially abdominal fat.

Worst Claim: Carboburn — falsely claims to neutralize the carbohydrates in most foods, assuring dieters that cutting carbs from the diet is no longer necessary.

Most Outrageous Claim: EstrinD — promoted as the one and only “miracle” diet pill for menopausal and pre-menopausal weight gain, solving also a wide range of problems such as reducing calorie intake, stopping binge eating, providing energy, control mood swings, and give a sense of well-being.