In the 3rd Century B.C., a man named Philon traveled the Byzantine Empire peddling hunger-control pills made of sesame, honey and sea onion. That recipe has long been forgotten, but the trade of dubious diets is alive and well. As anyone who has been on a diet knows, there`s a vast array of useless weight-loss gimmicks lurking in this $30 billion industry.
Whether people can tell the difference between a bona fide plan and a scam is important. Consider: Of the 50 million people expected to diet this year, experts say, a mere 5 percent will succeed.
”Some people become desperate to lose weight. It`s hard for them to know whether they`re doing the right thing,” said Jean Case, director of New Directions, a weight-management program affiliated with Kettering Medical Center in Ohio.
Many diet plans seem to stretch the limits of common sense and reason-such as eyeglasses that allegedly suppress the wearer`s appetite and
”magnet” diet pills that supposedly flush fat out of the body.
Still, many other scams aren`t as obviously absurd and can be more difficult to identify.
Part of the reason people are taken in is that they`re often looking for quick and simple ways to slim down.
”People are always looking for the easy way out,” said Sheryl Alexander, a chief clinical dietician with St. Elizabeth`s Hospital and Medical Center in Dayton, Ohio.
These quick weight-loss techniques are often short-lived because, generally, most of the initial weight loss is water. That`s why so many people quickly regain the pounds they`ve lost. Losing fat takes more time-and a lot more work.
Barbara Bosserman, for one, stayed clear of quick diet plans and over-the-counter products. ”They`re not that successful,” she said.
Instead, she enrolled in Kettering`s New Directions program in April 1990, lost 100 pounds and hasn`t gained them back. She lost weight the way doctors suggest-in a program supervised by a specialist who monitors weight, blood pressure and other vital signs to make sure the loss has no adverse affects on health.
But most dieters don`t do it that way-they`re too often lured by hype and marketing that plays on partial truths to give dubious diet plans the illusion of credibility.
One such plan, for instance, maintained that when certain foods combine in the body, they rot and putrefy, forming a digestive cesspool that causes a person to be fat.
As a result, the diet recommends that you eat fats, carbohydrates and proteins during separate meals. It also recommends fruit and vegetables because they wash toxins from the body instead of ”clogging” it.
While Consumer Reports agreed that digestion is a process of controlled decay, it called the diet ”sheer nonsense.” It said the decay doesn`t result in ”clogging.”
”It`s all really confusing,” St. Elizabeth`s Alexander said of the diet industry.
There are ways to avoid these questionable dieting plans. Ask your doctor`s advice, for starters.
Doctors say that successful dieting must also include an exercise plan and an overall program tailored to weight goals and other factors.
You can also seek quick advice from the government agencies that monitor the marketing of non-prescription drugs, medical devices and health-care services.
The Federal Trade Commission, for example, can seek federal court injunctions to halt fraudulent claims. Also, the federal Food and Drug Administration can seize and prohibit the sale of products with false advertising.
