almeeker

Commercials for diet products. You know as a nation when we start to throw down names to blame for the obesity epidemic, you never hear anyone bad mouth the diet industry. However over the last several days as I've been belly up on the couch (sometimes wishing for death) I've spent some QT with the telly. Anyway I cannot tell you how many times I heard someone in a diet aid/product say something to the effect of "You just can't do this by yourself, so you need to buy blah blah blah..." EXCUSE ME? I almost got as mad as that DWTS Palin Daughter hater dude, and shot my TV.

So I would like to invite anyone with a least favorite diet commercial to blast away here.

01gt4.6

there are key words (or phrases) that the "industry" uses that "we" fall for. Words such as "as much as", "up to", "as little as". I translate that to "no more than", again "no more than", "at least".

Example "You can lose up to 30 pounds in as little as 30 days." For one this doesn't say you will... but you CAN lose no more than 30 pounds in at least 30 days." In other words if you lose 1 pound, that is "up to" 30 pounds so it is true.

How about my own line.... During my weight loss period, I'd have cheat days, like everyone else. My weakness is a Butterfinger. So could say (and it's true) "I lost 40 pounds while eating Butterfingers!" That is totally true but very misleading.

The one thing that many of us ignore is the one that is in our face "RESULTS WILL VARY." Just b/c Joe Schmoe did it, that doesn't mean that you'll get the same results, in fact you know that they picked someone at the end of the bell curve to put in their ad.

rpmcduff

"Results are not typical" . Yeah because 99% of the people using this supposed miracle drug, dreamed up by a guy with a degree in Marketing, don't lose any weight.

LisaAnnie

Commercial the other night, "... eat all you want and still lose weight".

Riiiiight

Lizzycritter

Not a diet per se, but the PediaSure commercials bug me. If your kid was eating what was in the food pyramid in the commercial, there would be no need for this product, even with the "holes". SlimFast annoys me too, let's learn to eat healty by replacing real food with chocolate bars and milkshakes. If they made meal replacement bars that tasted like food instead of candy, maybe I'd buy them. Veggie ranch bars anyone?

Also off topic but i HATE the bikini trimmer commercial where the hedges get magically pruned when the lady walks by. Totally tasteless.

rpmcduff

My wife and I currently have a foster son (2 yrs old) that had a presciption for PediaSure (A bad idea in my opinion) when he came to us. He had problems gaining weight where he lived before. Unless the kid is not getting enough fat or sugar then I don't know what nutrient "holes" this is filling.

An 8oz serving has 240 calories.
*Total Fat: 9g
*Total Carbohydrate: 32g
Dietary Fiber: 3g
Sugars: 18g
*Protein: 7g

The worst part is the way they inhale it. Kids will literally come up gasping for air before they stop drinking it. Like they are addicted to a drug and can't get enough.

By the way he has no problem gaining weight when eating what the rest of our family eats.

almeeker

See I was right rpmcduff is one of the good guys, he even takes in foster kids. Good for you. Oh, and the stories I could tell you about nutritional supplements for children.... One of our children was allergic to wheat for the first several years of her life. We went to a support group just to make friends we could have play dates with. Anyway one particular family was giving their son nutritional supplements on the advice of their pediatrician, when they could just as easily have been feeding him food. Now he's pretty much addicted to chocolate milk, it's really sad.

Lizzycritter

I'm glad it's not just me. Sometimes I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall.

SailorDoom

Not really a criticism of a specific diet, but I'm always bothered by ads for "food-like products" (as author Michael Pollan puts it). Like Lizzy, rpmcduff and almeeker implied, I can't believe some of the stuff that passes muster as "part of a balanced diet".

*sarcastic voice* A tiny number of teeny cardboard cookies with imiatation chocolate chips in a foil package? It may be pumped full of chemicals, but its a calorie controlled portion! Some rubbery licorice? It may be almost nothing but sugar and stabilizers, but its free of saturated fat! Frosted sugar bomb breakfast cereal? Now made with whole grain and enriched with the very same vitamins that were removed during the massive processing required to make it palatable to your undernourished hyperactive kids!

Sorry for the rant, but I truly do not understand why people are so grossed out by the thought of eating something with less than 5 ingrediants in the list. As much as I hate ads, I would welcome a commercial for the lowly apple, some plain ol' brown rice, and so on...

Aside from that, the shake weight commercial is always good for a laugh!

Edit: Oh! Also those butt-shaping shoes and clothes! As if the models in the commercial attained that body from strange-looking shoes! Shoes! Now, I'm not saying they wouldn't encourage an otherwise inactive person to get movin', but any product that so many companies are cashing in on simultaneously seems pretty suspect in my book...

Lizzycritter

Frosted sugar bomb breakfast cereal? Now made with whole grain and enriched with the very same vitamins that were removed during the massive processing required to make it palatable to your undernourished hyperactive kids!

I laughed out loud and startled my sleeping cat! Interesting coincidence, most of my cooking is done with 5 ingredients or less.