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The Weight Loss Industry: Fact Or Fiction

The Weight Loss Industry: Fact or Fiction

Through the years, we have watched and even ridden the waves that the weight loss industry has created in our lifestyles. However, as it continues to explode with growth, we are left in the wake wondering if we experienced any benefits from what it was offering in the first place. Instead of reducing obesity and improving health and fitness, the industry perpetuates the image associated with popular culture, all the while providing half truths and misleading advertising. No one person is alike, just like no one diet is alike. Many companies realized that people respond to different stimuli in respect to the products they advertise to the public (hence the extensive array of different diet programs that are available in the market today). Some include food reduction diets, low fat diets, low carbohydrate diets and liquid diets. There are also commercial weight loss programs available, that provide support systems and education to increase the success rate of achieving and maintaining weight loss. But among the good intentions of these programs and diets there is a lot of misinformation that plays on the vulnerabilities of consumers. These have been enabled by mass media and the eternally expanding obsession with pop culture.

The industry initially began to build momentum as a means of trying to improve the health and wellness of society, but soon the vulnerabilities of its consumers were realized. From there it began to exploit consumer's desire to be viewed in a certain image. Regardless, the need for proven methods to reduce weight is nonetheless still necessary, now more than ever. The obesity rate in America has skyrocketed with almost a fifty percent increase over the last twenty years . One third of Americans are overweight and one third is obese. Approximately thirty percent of the American population was classified as obese in 2003, which is expected to continue increasing . Preadolescent and...