Читать книгу Only Fat People Skip Breakfast: The Refreshingly Different Diet Book - Lee Janogly - Страница 24

The same applies to the slimming aids you can buy over-the-counter in chemist or health-food shops. People keep buying these products then blaming themselves when they don’t work. The diet companies are making a fortune persuading you to buy these pills or food substitutes on the assumption that they will make you feel and look better. But do they? You tell me.

While there are reputable manufacturers of diet products, there is also a huge market in what can only be described as weight-loss fraud. As long as people are prepared to try to lose weight at any cost there will continue to be ‘entrepreneurs’ who exploit that desire by selling bogus products.

Recently I received an ‘invitation’ through the post to buy an ‘all natural’ tablet whose main unspecified ingredient reportedly helped dieters lose 72 pounds in 10 weeks—a result, which I imagine, could be achieved only by amputation. If I sent off my application ‘immediately’ I would be lucky enough to get an extra week’s supply of these fabulous capsules absolutely free. I can’t wait!

According to the product blurb, if I take just two tablets each day I will lose as much weight as I want and—yippee!—my metabolism will increase to such an extent that the fat will drop off my body (into a greasy puddle on the floor?). Developed in Switzerland (why is that meant to impress?) by doctors (not window cleaners then?), these tablets mean I will never feel hungry. Amazingly, I will never have to diet again as the tablets will be ‘retraining my body’s ability to convert fat to energy’. Thank goodness for that then.

The leaflet accompanying this miraculous, 100-percent herbal fat-burner shows a studious-looking man in a white coat wielding a stethoscope (in case I didn’t believe the ‘doctor’ bit?). The wording is full of scientific terms that seem to suggest the product has been created as a result of exciting new research into lipogenesis—the metabolic processes by which fat is stored in the body. The unique ingredient (still unnamed) is ‘especially relevant for people whose calorie consumption exceeds healthful levels’.

These claims are designed to persuade you that if a product is ‘relevant’ to overeating, you will stay fat forever if you don’t use it. The fear factor! Are you convinced?

If you’re looking for a quick-fix slimming aid, you are undoubtedly well served by manufacturers of diet products. It is a terrific industry – I wish I’d thought of it! But do we really believe we can buy a product and it will make us slimmer? Aren’t we just buying a fantasy? Some people buy Lottery tickets and dream about becoming a millionaire. Others buy diet products and dream of becoming slim. It’s the same thing (except that there’s a very small chance of actually winning the Lottery).

If there were indeed a safe, authorized, over-the-counter product that could make a fat person slim, we would all know about it. We would have read about it in a respected medical journal. There would have been controlled medical tests, serious long-term research and all the endorsements in place from government drug-safety administrations to license the product for sale. More to the point, everyone who wanted to be slim would be. But they aren’t. So that magic product or ingredient isn’t available. This doesn’t stop manufacturers claiming their diet products achieve this effect or, if they’re more responsible, suggesting that they can help you lose weight as part of a properly managed diet plan.

Sometimes these products are endorsed by doctors, who extol the safety and benefits of the tablets, potions or supplements. Personally, I believe that any doctors endorsing a diet product should be made to declare whether they have a financial interest in that product or are being paid any kind of commission.

Any product that promises instant success without the chore of dieting and exercise is a real concern to me. Such claims simply divert consumers from considering healthier ways of controlling their weight. Moreover, there can be serious side-effects from taking more than the recommended dose on the packet, and many dieters do this, as the diet mentality dictates that if one tablet or tea bag will make you slim, then five will make you slimmer.

In an image-obsessed culture, where companies market diet products aggressively to exploit people’s dissatisfaction with their looks, common sense sometimes loses out. Even though, intellectually, many people know the products won’t work, their desire to lose weight—to find a short cut so that they can be accepted, admired and successful – is so strong that it’s worth £29.99 just to buy into the fantasy.

Stop deluding yourself. You can’t have it all. You can try. You have tried. It doesn’t work.