The booming market of weight loss products is adding to the confusion of US adults trying to lose weight instead of helping them. There are so many weight loss options on the market. Like prescription weight loss drugs, herbal slimming pills, diet pills and plans, exercising equipment, detox diets, etc, that people do not know which direction they should go to lose some weight.
Research and Statistics on Weight Loss Products in the US
Most products make tall claims and look too good to be true adding to the confusion of people. A survey by Harris Interactive on behalf of GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare covering 2058 adults revealed that people are confused about what to believe in magnitude of the claims made by manufacturers and sellers of appetite suppressants, herbal weight loss products, and dietary supplements.
Most of these obesity treatment products have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nor have they been asked to submit safety or efficacy studies, or to include warnings about potential side effects on their labels. Still it has been found that three in five Americans think that these products are at least somewhat effective. One-third of them wrongly believe that the FDA has approved the products for safety and effectiveness before being sold to the public. Two in five assume that the government requires warnings about potential side effects on the labels of these products.
The most startling discovery made during this interactive study was that 18 million adults who want to lose weight in the coming time would rely on products that have not been reviewed and approved by the FDA before being sold to the public.
What do the experts say?
Dr. Rebecca Reeves, a GSK consultant, past president of the American Dietetic Association and managing director of the Behavioural Medicine Research Centre at Baylor College of Medicine said, “Weight-loss supplements claim to deliver extraordinary results with less effort than more traditional behavioural changes, such as diet and exercise.”
Furthermore, she said, “However, there is scarce scientific data available to validate these product claims, which is unfortunate for the 66 percent or so of American adults who are overweight and obese.”
Steven Burton, vice president, weight control, for GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare said, “Millions of overweight and obese Americans are incredibly frustrated with their efforts to lose weight, and unrealistic expectations and false hope feed that frustration.”
A Word of Advice
Ironically, the booming weight loss industry is doing more harm than it is helping people in the US to lose weight. ‘Buyer bewares’, that is the only advice which can be given to people who want to lose weight using alternative non prescription weight loss products.
