There are few industries that can survive, let alone thrive, offering products that suffer from a 90%+ failure rate – but thanks to the “appetite” of consumers for products that promise to solve their weight problems, the Diet Industry is one of them. This collection of essays reveals the most misguided practices of many well‐
known diet companies, so that you can avoid common dieting mistakes. Hunger Game
What You MUST Know About the
Diet Industry BEFORE Dieting

Insider guide to weight loss industry tricks 
Common diet advice that is dead wrong 
Hidden diet traps that waste time & money 
Core principles for weight loss success Paul Amoruso
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Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 2 Hunger Game
What You MUST Know BEFORE Dieting
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 3 About WeightNot
WeightNot has served over 15,000 members with an unmatched success rate; members on
average achieve weight loss of ½ to 1 pound per day on WeightNot’s flagship, patent-pending
HealthiFast program. All WeightNot programs use only natural, real foods – no packaged
foods, stimulants, prescriptions, artificial substances, injections or surgery – in combination with
intensive supplementation, education, training and coaching to achieve healthy, sustainable
results.
About the Author
Paul Amoruso is the Founder and CEO of WeightNot, and guided the development of the
WeightNot therapeutic nutrition programs. Paul is a serial entrepreneur in health and wellness,
with previous experience as the Chief Operating Officer at CEB (formerly Corporate Executive
Board) and Chief Administrative Officer at The Advisory Board Company, both best practices
research and executive education firms. He has also worked in product management for
Johnson & Johnson, and as an analyst at JP Morgan. He attended Wesleyan University where
he earned a BA with Honors in English and Psychology and was a 2-time New England
Champion and Nationally Ranked wrestler, and received his MBA from the Wharton School at
the University of Pennsylvania.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 4 Introduction
More than almost any other business category, the diet industry suffers from a lack of credibility
and high level of distrust. Unfortunately, this poor reputation is well-deserved. While just a few
minutes surfing the web will expose you to countless fad or scam products that prey on the
hopes of consumers and promise to quickly and effortlessly allow you to lose weight, this
segment of fly-by-night operators is more nuisance than major problem (caveat emptor).
Instead, it is in fact the largest and most well-known diet companies, with theoretically more
reputable, celebrity-endorsed products and programs, that have achieved massive scale (in the
hundreds of millions or billions of dollars annually) without delivering reliable or consistent
results, and have in turn given rise to the now commonplace mantra -- “diets don’t work.”
Our mission at WeightNot is to help people transform their weight and health through proper
nutrition and lifestyle change, and in pursuing this goal, we are often lumped in with the diet
industry at large. As a result, on a daily basis we run headlong into the initial distrust of
consumers who understandably are skeptical of anything that remotely seems like a “diet” – and
we know well the hard work of gaining the trust of those same consumers by delivering real
results and real education about nutrition. At WeightNot we choose to stand apart from the
major diet companies, and this collection of essays offers for your consideration our perspective
on the overall problem of obesity and the practices of the diet industry, with the hope that it will
make you a more educated consumer who can better navigate your weight loss options.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 5 Contents
PART I: THE BIG PICTURE.............................................................................................................................. 6 Essay #1: Obesity: (At Least) Twice as Bad as You Thought ..................................................................... 7 Essay #2: Are We Smarter Than Frogs? .................................................................................................... 9 Essay #3: Is Obesity really an Epidemic? ................................................................................................ 13 Essay #4: Treating the Symptoms, Not the Problem ............................................................................. 15 Essay #5: The Great Regression ............................................................................................................. 17 PART II: WEIGHT LOSS INDUSTRY PRACTICES ............................................................................................ 20 Essay #6: Bad Diet Advice from 620 B.C (That Just Won't Die) ............................................................... 21 Essay #7: Your Diet, from the makers of Haagen Dazs .......................................................................... 24 Essay #8: Artificial Cheesecake Anyone? ................................................................................................ 27 Essay #9: Are You Training to Be An Astronaut? .................................................................................... 29 Essay #10: The Dietary “Yes Men” ......................................................................................................... 32 Essay #11: Hunger Games: 5 Tricks of Bogus Weight Loss Products ..................................................... 35 Essay #12: Medical Weight Loss Clinic Vitamin B12 Shots? B‐Serious ... ............................................... 39 Essay #13: Weight Watchers: Opiate of the Massive ............................................................................. 41 PART III: CLOSING THOUGHTS.................................................................................................................... 46 Principles of Successful Diet Programs ................................................................................................... 47 Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 6 PARTI
THEBIGPICTURE
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 7 Essay#1:Obesity:(AtLeast)TwiceasBadasYouThought
Estimation is a means of simplification. It is a practical way to quickly determine the
order of magnitude of a particular item, and is useful when taking an exact measure
would be too complex, time-consuming or costly.
Of course, the problem with estimates is that they are by definition WRONG. And the
“accuracy” of an estimate is judged by how far the estimate is from the actual, correct
answer. Unfortunately, we tend to be really bad at estimating in certain circumstances,
as illustrated by problems with estimates related to obesity in the U.S.
Statistical House of Cards: Obesity Level Estimates
If estimates are by definition incorrect, then estimates based on other estimates have
the potential to be wildly incorrect, as errors are compounded. Such is the case with
estimates of obesity levels in the U.S., which currently place obesity at about 30% of the
population. The commonly quoted CDC population obesity estimate is based on the
Body Mass Index, or BMI – a calculation that is itself an estimate of individual body
composition. Using BMI calculations that are derived from sample survey data, the
government extrapolates population level estimates of obesity. Bad news -- a recently
released analysis of BMI data in comparison to actual body fat analyses shows that BMI
understates obesity in women by 50%, while overstating obesity for men by 25%.
Based on this correction, population level obesity is potentially upwards of 50%60% rather than 30%.
Guessing the Unknown: Obesity Cost Estimates
When trying to ascertain the size of something that is unknown or not calculable,
"estimate" is really just another word for “guess”. While there can be more educated or
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 8 more sophisticated guesses, this does not change the fact that you will not know how
good your estimate is (since you don’t have any way to get the correct answer) until
someone comes along with a more compelling estimate that shows your initial estimate
to be lacking. This is exactly what happened when Cornell and Lehigh economists
recently conducted a new type of analysis to better calculate the medical costs of
obesity, using family histories to leverage the genetic tendencies toward obesity that
exist within families. What they found – average annual health care costs per person
related to obesity are double the previous estimates -- $2,800 per person versus
$1,400. This indicates a population level cost of obesity equal to 17% of all health
care expenditures in the U.S.
Relying On Truthfulness: Exercise Participation Estimates
One of the most widely cited government sources of information on lifestyle is the
Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS conducts surveys about how people spend their
time, including the amount of time spent in exercise and sports activities. In the most
recent 2010 BLS data, you’ll see that only 18.5% of Americans are active on a daily
basis, with that group averaging 1.66 hours per day of exercise or sports --- meaning
that over 80% of the population does not exercise regularly. This already seems pretty
bad, however an NIH study suggests that the BLS data likely greatly overstates activity
levels due to the inaccuracy of self-reported information. The NIH study, which used
measurement devices worn by participants to record actual activity levels, found
that less than 5% of adults were meeting the recommendation of 30 minutes per
day of exercise (dramatically lower than their self-reported exercise levels). This
means that BLS estimates of exercise time could be too high by a factor of 4.
So What Do We Really Know?
For one, we know that our estimates of obesity, related health care costs and sedentary
lifestyle are still wrong, even with the modifications noted above. And these modified
estimates likely continue to understate our problems. We appear to have placed too
much faith in an imperfect process of estimation for understanding the issue of obesity
in the U.S., and thereby have failed to recognize an even more dire health situation than
is popularly believed.
The takeaway -- projections of 50% obesity levels in the U.S. by 2020 may in fact have
already been achieved, and we just haven’t realized or come to grips with it yet.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 9 Essay#2:AreWeSmarterThanFrogs?
Frogs, famously (and apocryphally), will sit in an uncovered pot of water that is slowly
brought to a boil, waiting there oblivious to their predicament until they die, instead of
simply jumping out, which they could do at any time. This story has been used
instructively in many contexts across many years to highlight the difficulty that we can
have in recognizing the dangerous implications of slow change – from the menace of
the Soviet Union to Global Warming.
It is tempting to use the same analogy to describe the gradual rise of obesity in America
– in this case, the “pot” in which we float is our industrial food system that has over time
created a nutritional environment that is systematically fattening us to death. The CDC
has given us the perfect visual representation of how obesity levels have indeed been
raised to the “boiling point” (I’ve shown the data progression below in 5 year increments
from 1985 through 2010).
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 10 I’d argue, however, that it is the differences between the situation of the boiling frogs
and the overweight American population (and not the similarities) that are most
instructive as to the nature of our problem, perhaps even pointing toward solution.
Knowing is not the same as Doing
To start and as was just pointed out in The Atlantic, recent studies indicate that
Americans do indeed seem to recognize the risks of obesity (You’re Fat and You Know
It: Why Government Anti-obesity Efforts Fail). This research suggests that the boiling
frog analogy may not hold up as to our level of awareness of the risks of our increasing
weight and its impact on life expectancy. Whether this recognition has always been
present as simple common sense, is due to our own personal observations as obesity
rates and related disease prevalence have grown over time, or is due to the success of
government messaging campaigns, the problem is that this awareness has not yet
translated into an arresting or reversal of the obesity trends.
This begs a couple of questions – first, if people are not taking action to reduce their
own health risks, why? And if they are taking action, why aren’t these actions having
measurable impact at the population level? Let me take on the first of these questions
here.
Behavioral Economics and Our Incentives to Eat Unhealthily
As to the issue of inaction, I’d point to an important difference in our circumstances from
that of our friends the boiling frogs. In our case, we do not necessarily suffer from
ignorance or apathy. However, the long term incentive to “get out” of our boiling pot
(and eventually save or extend our lives) is actually offset by substantial SHORT TERM
INCENTIVES TO STAY IN THE BOILING POT AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. Specifically,
we benefit in the short term from eating inexpensively and poorly by:
1) Externalizing or Shifting Costs – We reduce our short term food expenditures
by consuming cheaper, less healthy foods, and at the same time shift the costs
of this choice to the community at large, which pays for our poor eating decisions
in the form of subsidies for health care expenditures through insurance risk
pools. This is a “moral hazard” created by our inability (for now) to allocate the
discrete costs of obesity or unhealthy eating habits to individuals who create
those costs.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 11 2) Taking Advantage of Subsidies – An unintended consequence of government
agricultural subsidies, in conjunction with the misguided USDA food pyramid, has
been the abundance of certain types of calories (for example, from High Fructose
Corn Syrup or grains) that appear to play a distinct role in obesity. The lower
cost of subsidized crops means cheaper food prices for products that make use
of those crops – and a relative price advantage over non-subsidized calories that
may be healthier. This of course translates directly into increased sales of
unhealthy products that use subsidized crops.
3) Avoiding the Costs of Cooking/Enjoying the Benefits of Not Cooking –
When the cost of eating packaged food (however unhealthy) is lower than the
“cost” of your own hourly labor and ingredients to cook a comparable meal, it is
more likely that only those who get substantial personal utility or enjoyment from
cooking will select this option in the short term. Further, the reality of modern
American life is that TIME, NOT CALORIES, is the scare resource. So, more
than just looking at packaged food as a pure substitute for labor and ingredients,
many will assign a “premium” to their free time (well beyond their hourly pay
rate), in turn raising the bar for the return or cost savings required for someone to
invest time in cooking for themselves, as avoiding cooking conserves or expands
the amount of available free time.
4) Receiving Short Term Biological Rewards – Our early ancestors evolved in an
environment of relative scarcity, where stores of fat, carbohydrates and sodium
could be difficult to find. As such, our bodies are wired to eat these nutrients
when available – with internal biological reward systems that are very powerful.
Even though our food environment has changed completely, our bodies have
not. So when faced with manufactured foods that are “engineered” to appeal to
this primitive drive – and to taste better than our own home-cooked meals – the
biological reward system can overwhelm calculation of short-term benefit versus
long-term risks.
5) Avoiding the Social Costs/Penalties of Obesity – With the prevalence of
obesity in the U.S., there are now large cohorts where obesity is either the norm
or far less unusual, a situation that tends to de-stigmatize the condition and
reduce the likelihood of incurring social costs that might otherwise be a factor in
dietary decisions where one in fact has the knowledge to make better decisions.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 12 Related, it is now socially unacceptable or politically incorrect to take what might
be perceived as a critical posture toward obesity, particularly as it becomes
viewed as a spreading disease that might be out of our personal control (see
Essay #1: Is Obesity Really an Epidemic?). There is even a civil rights
organization for the obese — the National Association to Advance Fat
Acceptance (NAAFA) – that aggressively attacked the typically marketing-savvy
Disney for its apparently well-meaning (but admittedly clueless) Habit Heroes
theme park exhibit, now shuttered (Disney Closes Controversial Fat-Fighting
Exhibit). Certainly “shame” is not a strategy for weight loss, however the
corollary to this entire situation is that, as de facto norms have changed with the
population, the positive benefits of being around large groups of people with
healthy habits (e.g., mirroring those habits) are simply less widely available.
Rather than a pot of boiling water, one might think of our current nutritional environment
as more akin to QUICKSAND – actively pulling us down, such that we cannot just
casually “jump out”, but instead need an intelligent plan (and likely some assistance or
instruction) to escape. So, until such time that individuals realize very concrete direct
costs (as measured in actual dollars, social currency and quality of life) that exceed the
avoided costs and perceived benefits of unhealthy eating, it may actually continue to
seem RATIONAL for many NOT TO ACT, waiting as long as possible to expend the
required effort to battle the food system that holds them captive.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 13 Essay#3:IsObesityreallyanEpidemic?
Let’s look at the definition of the word “epidemic” --Spreading rapidly and extensively by infection and affecting many individuals in an area
or population at the same time, as of a disease or illness. (Source: The American Heritage
Medical Dictionary, by Houghton Mifflin Company)
I’m going fly in the face of our current media and government rhetoric by saying NO, OBESITY IS NOT AN EPIDEMIC. There is no virus, infection, or transmission
mechanism that would characterize a true epidemic. It would certainly be true to say
that obesity has reached epidemic proportions. Unlike epidemics, however, the
solution is not a breakthrough medical “cure” or eradication of a virus.
So, why is the term ‘epidemic’ used so frequently with regard to obesity?
As there is nothing truly contagious about obesity in the traditional epidemiological
sense, the characterization is no doubt used in part for political purposes, to rally
support for what is now a major health crisis requiring substantial resources for
treatment of obesity-related diseases (though not treatment of the cause). But more
importantly, the term epidemic suggests that there is some frightening external force
outside of our control, spreading like a shadow across the land – and that we must
enlist large government agencies and all of the intellect of our medical profession to
understand and fight this problem ON OUR BEHALF. On that note, the AMA recently
classified obesity as a disease, furthering this perspective. This is, I believe, a way that
we as a culture and as individuals have attempted to avoid personal responsibility for
the obesity problem.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 14 Let me draw some comparisons.
Did we consider lung cancer and heart disease from smoking to be epidemics? How
about poisoning from lead paint? Certainly not. These were preventable outcomes that
resulted from our own behavior or products. We used these products, injured or killed
ourselves (or others), and ultimately figured out that we needed to make some changes
to our lifestyle or the products we consume – though this process took a lot longer than
it should have. I would suggest that the same is the case for obesity, though the
primary source of the problem is much more diffuse and pervasive -- in the form of our
industrial food manufacturing and distribution system, which fosters poor nutrition and
excess calorie consumption.
In my personal view, the use of the term “epidemic” is quite unfortunate, as it has
unconsciously shifted responsibility AWAY from the individual, and away from the real
problem of our eating habits and food supply. It fosters the idea that we are helpless
and need to be saved – and reinforces the mistaken idea that it is the medical
profession, armed with prescriptions and procedures, that will save us (see Essay #4:
Treating the Symptoms, Not the Problem). I am a HUGE consumer of medical
research, but I will say definitively that we don’t need to spend hundreds of millions of
dollars in research on the intricacies of obesity related illness to figure out WHY
Americans have gained so much weight.
I will suggest to you that obesity is in many ways a CORPORATE problem, and one that
CAN be solved by everyday people like us, using the free market system that makes
this country so great, if we choose to save ourselves. As we all know, companies sell
what people want to buy, and as long as people are willing to buy artificial or unhealthy
food(-like) products, companies will continue to make and market these products. So it
is incumbent on each of us to go about battling obesity by using our wallets, with
choices that shift the demand that companies so adeptly follow.
And to do that, we must take responsibility for getting education about our choices, then
carefully make those choices – for ourselves and our families.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 15 Essay#4:TreatingtheSymptoms,NottheProblem
Are Prescriptions and Surgery the right options to battle obesity?
When you go to your doctor’s office, prescriptions and surgery are the two alternatives
for weight loss and weight related illnesses that most traditional physicians are
equipped to offer. Both options are discrete and concrete treatments for the symptoms
of obesity, but they do not impact the real, underlying causes of excess weight or
obesity – namely, the industrial food system and modern eating habits.
Physicians have been trained to save and extend lives, so they’ll settle for keeping you
alive just a little longer by keeping the symptoms under control if that’s the best they can
do against the tidal wave of obesity. Realistically, they’ve got relatively little time, and
relatively little influence when it comes to helping patients change long term behavior,
and they need to be practical as they are facing immediate and sometimes urgent
disease states that have progressed in spite of their advice to patients.
Take General Practitioners and Internal Medicine doctors, who see daily a parade of 2530 or more people for a precious few minutes each, two thirds of whom are obese or
overweight. They will generally have a 30-90 second canned speech for overweight or
obese patients that includes admonitions to “eat better and exercise”, which they know
will most likely be ineffectual and fall on deaf ears. This speech is therefore inevitably
followed by “fill these scripts for (fill in the blank – cholesterol medication, blood
pressure medication, anti-depressants, diabetes medication, reflux medication, thyroid
medication, appetite suppressants like phentermine, etc.).” This may not solve the
underlying dietary problem, but it at least keeps some of the symptoms of the modern
American diet at bay.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 16 More discouraging, and a clearer signal that modern medicine (and health insurance) is
“giving up” on changing the behavior of Americans is the extraordinary growth in gastric
bypass and lap band procedures for the morbidly obese. In fact, high volume centers
for these procedures are being built across the country. Why is this? For physicians,
they at least know with certainty that you CAN’T eat everything you want (for a while),
and for insurance companies, they hope to avoid the cost of treating obesity related
illnesses in the future.
In fact, following a recent clinical study touting the “family benefits” of gastric bypass
surgery, one hospital in New Haven, CT is actually marketing Family and Couples
Gastric Bypass (St. Raphael’s – see article Couple and Family Weight Loss
Surgery). This type of marketing may be very well intentioned by medical providers or
institutions doing what they can to battle obesity – but it is hard not to see this as the
kind of article you’d expect to read as a satire in The Onion, or as precursor to the
scene in the futuristic animated movie “Wall-E” where everyone has to float on personal
hovercraft due to their obesity and muscular atrophy.
Is this really what we’ve come to? Has sewing someone’s stomach shut actually
become medically necessary, with no alternative? If the absurdity of this is not clear,
just take this concept to its logical extreme – what’s next? Gastric bypass for
kids? How about gastric bypass infants? Then we’d really get ahead of this obesity
thing! But wait, it’s already happening … a 2-year old in Saudi Arabia just had gastric
bypass.
Ultimately, the answer for obesity does not rest in the hands of the medical profession,
who are in essence doing triage on the victims of a continuously unfolding national
disaster. This is not really THEIR problem to solve. Instead, the answer lies with
US. You and me. As hard as it is against the backdrop of the modern food
environment – where healthy options are buried by artificial foods, and access to
unnecessary calories is cheap and easy – we need to take personal responsibility for
our own eating habits. And I’ll have more to say about that in Essay #5: The Great
RegressionEssay #4: Treating the Symptoms, Not the Problem.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 17 Essay#5:TheGreatRegression
Are we "entitled” to eat whatever we want?
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), a condition first formally recognized as a clinical
diagnosis in the early 1970’s, is characterized by self-centered and self-promoting
behavior, overconfidence and inflated self-esteem without basis in reality, and a deep
personal sense of deserving (e.g., fame, fortune, good grades, good looks, professional
advancement) without merit or valid rationale, or out of an unfounded sense of being
“special”.
In my recent reading of “The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement”
(2009) by Jean Twenge, PhD and Keith Campbell, PhD, I was struck by the fact that the
growth in clinical narcissism diagnoses across the last 40 years directly parallels
the growth in obesity diagnoses across the same period. It turns out that clinical
narcissism is now as prevalent as obesity in our society, and like obesity, is present
across all demographic groups – so it appears we’ve yet another problem of “epidemic
proportions” on our hands (see Essay #3: Is Obesity really an Epidemic?).
In my view, the concomitant rise of narcissism and obesity in the U.S. is no mere
coincidence. The authors link the spread of narcissism to distinct changes in our culture
– as evidenced by parents who continuously praise children without justification,
celebrity glorification and reality television fame, and easy credit that (at least until 2008)
fuels unsustainable purchasing. Slowly but surely, our tradition of American
individualism has migrated from focus on laudable Self-Reliance to focus on
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 18 embarrassing Self-Admiration. I would argue that this same cultural shift has also
created the societal preconditions for the dramatic rise in obesity rates.
The Great Regression
If you are a parent like me, you may be familiar with the measurement of “maturity” as
applied to our children and their development – which includes prominently the ability to
defer reward and to control short term behavior for long term benefit – and basically to
be able to deal with “no” in a constructive and functional manner that exhibits resilience.
It is reasonable to also look at our society as a whole on this maturity scale, though in
doing so, you’ll quickly realize that the news is not good. In fact, across the last
decades, the American aspiration to Self-Discipline has been displaced by pursuit of
Self-Indulgence; the new cultural currency is what one has or gets to do
IMMEDIATELY, not what one denies themself or works hard to achieve or earn over the
long term. In this context, it appears that we have as a society succeeded in essentially
infantilizing our nation – what I call “The Great Regression”, where we’ve gone
backwards from the “Greatest Generation” of our grandparents (as coined by Tom
Brokaw) to the “Entitlement Generation”, as Generation Y (born to 1980-2000) has been
dubbed by the media and employers across the nation (this cohort is now in fact the
subject of numerous academic research studies in the area of organizational behavior
for their expectations and self-perceptions – they will make up 75% of the workforce by
2025).
Implications for the Obesity Battle
So, in addition to facing the significant challenge of navigating the modern food
environment, I’d posit that we as individuals and as a society also need to overcome our
disadvantaged cultural context in order to reverse the problem of obesity. For decades,
the message has been – “go ahead, indulge, you deserve it!” - shaping the attitudes of
so many toward consumption across the spectrum, including food. And the result has
been the same disconnection from reality that we see in clinical narcissism – as a
nation, we continue to eat unhealthily and watch our collective weight go up and health
deteriorate, without connecting our short term actions to the long term outcomes (to the
great frustration of our medical profession – see Essay #4: Treating the Symptoms, Not
the Problem). (Please Note: Just to be clear, I’m not saying that those who are obese
are also narcissists – I’m saying that obesity and narcissism are two different
phenomena that share the same origins in our regressed culture).
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 19 At an individual level, we commonly see this cultural challenge to weight loss playing
out among our WeightNot members, who face the headwinds of societal pressure,
sometimes subtle and sometimes overt. Rather than eliciting consistent praise for their
weight loss efforts, they may occasionally be ridiculed by others for denying themselves
certain foods, for following disciplined daily schedules, for carefully preparing their
meals or for adhering strictly to program guidelines. Some members may actually hide
the fact that they are on a weight loss program for this very reason -- not because of the
stigma of being too heavy, but because of the stigma of doing something about their
weight that is commensurate with the seriousness of the problem. And who can blame
them for avoiding this “can’t win for losing” type of criticism.
At least for now, it seems that the battle for our health is joined at the individual level,
and as such it is helpful to know what each of us is up against – large systemic forces in
both our food environment and our culture that are not inherently supportive of our longterm personal well-being.
“Narcissism is the fast food of the soul. It tastes great in the short term, has negative,
even dire, consequences in the long run, and yet continues to have widespread appeal,”
writes author Twenge.
And so it seems that our nourishment is wanting on two fronts – with both our psyches
and our bodies requiring some good old fashion American discipline and personal
responsibility to fix what ails us.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 20 PARTII
WEIGHTLOSSINDUSTRYPRACTICES
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 21 Essay#6:BadDietAdvicefrom620B.C(ThatJustWon'tDie)
Most of us were taught Aesop’s fables as children. And when someone today asks
about the proper pace for “healthy” weight loss, they’ll inevitably hear a response that
echoes the famous line from Aesop’s The Hare and the Tortoise – “Slow and steady
wins the race.” Everyone then nods their head in agreement, of course, as who would
argue with that old chestnut.
I’m guessing that there was not much obesity in the period from 620 to 560 B.C. when
Aesop lived, at least not among the Greek slaves of that time (of which Aesop was
one). I’m also willing to bet that Aesop was not medically trained even by the standards
of his time, nor did he intend his fables to apply to medical or nutritional issues.
Perhaps most importantly, earliest interpretations of Aesop’s fable indicate that the story
was meant to be a commentary on qualities such as arrogance and overconfidence (the
hare gets out ahead and takes a nap), the use of brain over brawn, and persistence –
but not on the virtue of one’s relative pace in anything, which was purely a storytelling
device.
So 2,572 years after Aesop’s death, why does his adage persist as conventional
wisdom when it comes to weight loss?
Let’s have Aesop himself give us the answer.
“Once bitten twice shy” (Aesop, The Cat and the Mice)
There is no doubt that the history of fad or crash diets that have been serially popular
across many decades is one of the reasons that the slow and steady advice is given so
much credence. The parade of unhealthy weight loss approaches with at best fleeting
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 22 and at worst dangerous results has been long and seemingly never ending – from
cabbage soup diets to lemon juice and maple syrup cleanses. So it is not surprising,
and even expected, that anything associated with rapid weight loss is so quickly
dismissed by those previously trying or observing such methods.
“There is no believing a liar, even when telling the truth” (Aesop, The Boy Who
Cried Wolf)
More broadly, the diet industry is without much credibility. Beyond the fad diets noted
above, even established brands do not have reputations for delivering meaningful or
sustainable results, with far more failure stories than successes. Given this, virtually
anything that is represented by the industry, particularly as to results, suffers greatly
from this response of skepticism – whether true or not.
“I am sure the grapes are sour” (Aesop, The Fox and the Grapes)
Dissonance and envy are powerful forces in our personal and corporate psyches. If you
are a consumer on a diet program that is not working for you, you may be more likely to
attribute the greater success of another approach to something unhealthy – this is a
common and normal ego-protection mechanism. For companies that offer weight loss
programs with weak or inconsistent results, it makes sense to try to position more
effective alternatives as unsafe, as a means of camouflaging the fact that the value
proposition of your offering is lacking – while also capitalizing on the fears of
consumers. (Note also that the business models of the major diet companies are
predicated on your long term dependence on their packaged food products, therefore
making speed anathema, and creating the ulterior motive for ignoring the benefits of
speed in weight loss).
So, why do I say that the slow and steady aphorism is bad advice in the case of weight
loss?
“Appearances are Often Deceiving” (Aesop, The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing)
While the slow and steady lesson rings true and seems perhaps unquestionable to us
due to our early childhood associations and the factors just described, this saying turns
out to be WRONG when it comes to weight loss. In fact, a recent (2010) study – aptly
named “The Association Between Rate of Initial Weight Loss and Long-Term Success
in Obesity Treatment: Does Slow and Steady Win the Race?” - confirmed the findings
of a long line of previous studies, demonstrating that FASTER IS BETTER, at least
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 23 when weight loss is done properly through a “lifestyle intervention”. Those who lose
weight faster are not only more likely to retain their weight loss, but also ARE AT NO
GREATER RISK FOR WEIGHT REGAIN. It is worth including the findings of this study
here –
“There were three key findings with regards to weight outcomes.
First, women who lost weight at a FAST rate during the first 4 weeks
of treatment achieved significantly greater weight reductions at 6
months than those who lost at MODERATE and SLOW rates, and
those who lost at a MODERATE rate during the first 4 weeks of treatment
lost significantly more weight than those who lost at a SLOW rate. At 18
months, the FAST group maintained a significantly greater weight loss
than the SLOW group. These findings are consistent with previous
research demonstrating that larger initial weight losses are associated with
greater long-term weight loss success.
Second, no significant differences between groups were observed in
terms of weight regain. Contrary to previous research, participants in the
present study who lost at a greater initial rate did not experience greater
amounts of weight regain post-treatment than those who lost at a slower
initial rate.
Third, the FAST and MODERATE group were 5.1 and 2.7 times,
respectively, more likely to achieve successful and beneficial weight
loss maintenance of 10% body weight reduction at 18-months followup than the SLOW group. Only 16.9% of the SLOW group attained this
successful 10% weight loss in the year following active behavioral
treatment compared to 35.6% of the MODERATE group and 50.7% of the
FAST group.”
Note that the lifestyle intervention approach used in this study is in keeping with the
WeightNot philosophy, though our program is more comprehensive or multi-faceted.
So, when you’re listening to conventional wisdom about the superiority of slow weight
loss, be sure to remember Aesop’s other advice – “Every truth has two sides; it is as
well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either.”
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 24 Essay#7:YourDiet,fromthemakersofHaagenDazs
Should your weight loss program be run by a giant candy and ice cream
company?
A lot of people apparently think so – because Jenny (formerly Jenny Craig), one of the
nation’s three largest weight loss businesses, is owned and operated by Nestle, which
is both the world’s largest candy company and the world’s largest ice cream company
(their brands include the famously fattening Haagen Dazs) – bigger than all of its
competitors including Hershey, Cadbury and Breyer’s. (Note: Nestle also owns the
well-known liquid diet product Optifast, so they’re really doubling down here).
It seems almost too diabolical and cynical to be true. But Nestle has, in fact, found a
way to profit by making you fat, and then charging you later to help you try to get
skinny. Even if the Jenny program works for you in the short term (I’ll reserve my
comments on the quality of this program for now — See Essay #9: Are You Training to
Be An Astronaut?), you can be sure that they’ll be right there with some candy and ice
cream to sell you after you’re done!
So, if things work out the way Nestle would like – you’ll get fat, get skinny, get fat again,
and so on, in a never ending cycle of profit for them. While this certainly reflects a sort
of perverse “genius” of customer manipulation and exploitation, it is extraordinary that a
company can get away with this in plain view. (And let’s be fair – Slimfast, another wellknown weight loss program, is owned by packaged global food giant Unilever, so Nestle
isn’t the only one working both sides of the fence).
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 25 But it’s not that they’re necessarily evil. Beyond the single-minded pursuit of growth and
profit, this really speaks to an inadequacy of their corporate mission and values, and a
fundamental lack of sincere concern for their customers at a human level. Their
objective is simply to sell more packaged food for more profit, whatever that food may
be — whether fattening or “diet”. So, with that mindset, it just wouldn’t occur to them
that selling diet foods conflicts with selling unhealthy, fattening foods. They probably
use corporate-speak and call it “synergy”, which makes it sound quite acceptable and
even brilliant – the management consultants and board of directors are all applauding.
And this massive contradiction now goes even further, as Nestle is claiming a new
nutrition-oriented market positioning with investment in nutritional products for specific
medical conditions. This act of seeming corporate responsibility with investments to
position itself as a therapeutic nutrition company would otherwise be welcome, if the
company wasn’t already A GLOBAL LEADER in the very business that has contributed
to nutrition-driven diseases – such as high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes.
Remember, it is not like they simultaneously offered to shut down these other
businesses selling unhealthy food. This is like the world’s largest tobacco company
announcing that they will now be selling nicotine replacement and lung cancer drugs,
and suddenly claiming to be all about health — while still happily and aggressively
selling cigarettes.
I can just hear the indignation at Nestle headquarters – “people have the right to eat
what they want, and who are we to stop them from eating our junk food? What about
personal responsibility? We can’t help it if people overeat.” I’m ALL for personal
responsibility, and I would agree that people should make better choices, saying “no” to
Nestle products in particular with greater frequency. But Nestle’s hypothetical
argument does not really hold, since –
1. We’re hardwired to eat high carbohydrate, high fat and high salt foods when
available (a vestige of our ancestors who might take days to find calorie stores),
2. The massive industrial food distribution system has overwhelmed healthy options
with cheap unhealthy options — foods “engineered” by companies like Nestle to
appeal to us and packaged to get our attention and money,
3. Whole generations have lived with incorrect nutrition information and as the
recipients of non-stop consumer marketing FROM THEM, and
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 26 4. Nestle and its industry counterparts are indeed working VERY hard to get you to
eat their food, and LOTS of it – in fact Nestle alone spent $8.9 Billion in
consumer marketing across all of their businesses in just the first half of 2011
Leaving aside the viability of Jenny as a business and a weight loss program (the
operation was reportedly just put on the block by Nestle for reasons of financial
performance), as a matter of principle and out of refusal to be manipulated by an
industrial food giant that cares more about getting your money than the impact of their
food on your health, you might want to give some thought to exactly who sponsors the
weight loss approach you select.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 27 Essay#8:ArtificialCheesecakeAnyone?
Do you think that fake brownies and artificial cheesecake are actually healthy?
Imitation desserts are some of the most featured products in advertising by the nation’s
leaders in commercial weight loss programs, including Medifast and Nutrisystem. Don’t
believe me? Take a look a look at the ad samples above.
So, even more important, do you think THEY believe that these fake desserts are really
healthy for you?
Answer: They don’t care, as long as you buy these artificial foods from them.
What’s really going on here?
Lie #1 – These Foods are Healthy!
These types of ads “bait” consumers and attempt to make them believe that there are
no hard choices or lifestyle and habit changes required to become healthy and lose
weight.
This is THE ILLUSION OF HEALTHINESS that they’ve built around artificial foods, and
it’s a marketing strategy honed by commercial diets and traditional food companies.
The underlying message — somehow, they’ve created a “healthy” version of foods you
know you shouldn’t eat regularly.
The implication is that indulging in desserts and sweets is no problem with these
magical formulations. So tempting to believe, but of course, this is patently false. It can
be difficult to break unhealthy habits. Moreover, in our society and culture today, people
are much less willing to make personal sacrifices, even for their own long term
benefit. No wonder this is a message that so many embrace, even if in their heart of
hearts, they know better.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 28 Lie #2 – You Can Have Your Cake and Lose Weight Too!
Just as important, the message of this advertising is that all those bad habits you’ve had
for years – turns out you don’t need to change them at all! Just eat THEIR versions of
those bad foods. This is the ILLUSION OF BREAKING COMPROMISES – yes, you
can have your cake (just name your flavor) and lose weight too!
This has in fact become the STANDARD messaging from all of the big diet companies –
from Weight Watchers to Jenny (Craig) to Nutrisystem to Medifast – and especially from
the “gimmick” or “magic potion” companies like Sensa and others. In the face of
consumers who would like to accomplish their weight and health goals without the
challenge of making changes and choices (who wouldn’t?), this is the easy albeit
unethical compromise that large diet companies gladly make in their advertising in order
to sell their products – knowing full well that their approach can rarely translate into long
term or sustained weight loss for their clients.
Reality
The truth is that the diet foods peddled by these companies (particularly the fake
desserts) typically have had one unhealthy ingredient replaced with another (for
example, processed carbohydrates and salt for fat). Or, they are laden with all manner
of artificial substances and chemicals that may leach important nutrients from our
bodies, injure our digestive systems and increase our toxic load. Furthermore, what is
required to become healthy IS a change to lifestyle and habits. There are no shortcuts
– though there are MUCH better ways than packaged food programs to accomplish
these changes.
So if you are looking for a weight loss program, consider whether that program helps
you build the foundation for a lifetime of health and weight maintenance. Avoid the
seduction of the illusions promoted in typical weight loss advertising. If the message
tells you explicitly or implicitly that you can have your cake and lose weight too, turn on
your inner truth detector and take a reading before proceeding.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 29 Essay#9:AreYouTrainingtoBeAnAstronaut?
If you’re not training for the space program, why are you eating packaged meals?
If you’re old enough to remember Tang, a powdered orange flavored drink mix
introduced in 1957 and soon thereafter advertised as “the drink of astronauts,” you’ll
remember a time when eating packaged “food-like products” was a complete novelty.
This was of course something you’d only do if you had absolutely no access to REAL
food – e.g. in outer space
Let’s be clear, this product was not especially healthy – but if John Glenn drank it on a
Mercury mission, then people could overlook that fact and give it a try. Of course due to
its high sugar content and the association with space flight and science, kids like me
loved it.
Looking back, this moment marked the start of the “Manufactured Food Marketed as
Scientific Ingredient Mixture” era, where the specific benefits of a particular nutrient or
the simple practicality of a product (e.g., lasts for years without spoiling) was used as a
“cover” to justify its artificial nature, and to obscure its lack of nutritional value.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 30 Fast forward 50 years, following an arms race of manufacturers producing more and
more elaborate food-like products, and the landscape of American nutrition has been
transformed. Foods from all categories are being “engineered” in laboratories to be
appealing without regard to healthfulness, then marketed based on the presence (or
absence) of specific nutrients. Against this modern backdrop, it is easy to see why
people may fail to recognize that eating packaged diet foods as a way to lose weight
and regain health is the exact OPPOSITE of what they should be doing.
By contrast, it is very unlikely that anyone living in the 1950’s or 1960’s would ever have
put up with the generally horrible tasting packaged diet foods sold today, or even the
concept of purposely avoiding real food – without regard to the supposed nutritional
value of those fake foods.
Beyond the “science experiment” feel to packaged diet food programs, there are a few
very big problems with this approach to weight loss, as used by Jenny (Craig), Medifast,
Nutrisystem and others.
Problem #1: Trains You to Keep Eating Artificial Foods
Any responsible weight loss program should have as a primary objective the retraining
of participants to eat properly. In the case of packaged food plans, your training is
nothing of the sort. In fact, packaged artificial foods are a PRIMARY CAUSE of the
obesity problem in the U.S. Far from breaking you out of the pattern of eating unhealthy
packaged products, such diets actually reinforce this behavior. And, because their
packaged products are branded or exclusive to them, the hope of these artificial diet
food companies is to get you to consume their products for a long time – how could you
figure out how to ever replicate those products yourself with real food if you need to lose
or maintain your weight?
Problem #2: Trains You to Be Lazy About Food Selection
There is of course the argument that eating packaged diet foods is “smart”, because
they are so convenient. But really, I believe the word “thoughtless” is a much better
characterization. Just eating the package they tell you, when they tell you, may get you
through one of these programs, but it will give you absolutely no insight into food
selection, portion control or sustainable dietary structure – the daily decision-making
skills necessary to succeed in the long-run.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 31 Problem #3: Trains You to Keep Eating Unhealthy Food Types
“Treats” are fine once in a while, but for many who are overweight, they are eaten far
too often. Rather than responsibly working with clients to overcome this problem,
packaged diet food companies simply allow you to eat artificial versions of unhealthy
foods (like fake brownies) so that you don’t have to change your behavior at all. This
once again REINFORCES the wrong behavior, and fails to make people take
responsibility for good decisions. Further, it exposes the inability of these companies to
deal with the underlying causes of cravings, blood sugar instability and other metabolic
problems that underlie the sweet-seeking behavior (for more on this topic, see Essay
#8: Artificial Cheesecake Anyone?).
Reality
These artificial diet food companies completely ignore the fact that in your real post-diet
life, you should be prepared to plan and shop for meals properly with real foods, cook
this real food correctly, understand the impact of particular foods on your own
metabolism and physiology, and navigate our actual and very challenging food
environment to find the healthy foods available to you. If you can’t do these things by
the end of your weight loss program, and fall back to eating packaged foods, any weight
gain will be reversed – and quickly. And this is of course the story we all hear so often.
So when you’re selecting a weight loss program, remember that it is not just the short
term weight loss benefit you’re seeking – it is the opportunity to successfully build the
new habits and skills that create a healthy, long-term lifestyle based on enjoyment of
real food.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 32 Essay#10:TheDietary“YesMen”
When it comes to providing a positive service experience, the dictum “the customer is
always right” usually makes sense. But especially for expertise-driven service
businesses, it is critical to differentiate between managing the service experience (e.g.,
responsiveness, fixing problems, staff friendliness) and the content of the service
itself. For example, a physician shouldn’t agree to an unnecessary operation simply
because their patient desires it — though the physician and their staff should always be
pleasant and efficient. A driving instructor shouldn’t allow their student to drive
recklessly simply because the student wants to — though the instructor should always
be supportive and give instructions politely. A good service experience and saying “NO”
are not incompatible. Indeed, you need and fully expect experts that you hire to tell you
“NO” when required in their judgment, whether or not you want to hear it.
So why is the word “NO” so completely absent in commercial weight loss programs?
You Can’t Handle the Truth
As I’ve written previously, the U.S. culture, and in turn consumer, has become
increasingly self-involved and entitled over the past several decades, in a way that
reflects a reversal of personal and cultural maturity (See Essay #5: The Great
Regression). Not surprisingly then, there is great risk that consumers will not be
interested in weight loss programs predicated on principles that restrict them from
having or doing whatever they want, whenever they want – even if such restrictions are
in their best interest. With value placed on indulgence, convenience and immediate
gratification, the idea of a business based on necessary limitations, sustained effort and
long term goals for your customers is a scary proposition. This reality is definitely not
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 33 lost on large diet companies, which face substantial financial pressure from
shareholders focused on the narrow issue of immediate returns.
Permissiveness Run Amuck
In this context, marketing rationalizations overcome nutritional principles —
“Maybe we should not make anything off limits in our program – just charge a few
extra ‘points’ instead”
“How about creating fake versions of unhealthy things, like cheesecake”
“Let’s give them a powder or pill and just tell them to eat the same way”
…..and so on and so on.
These large commercial weight loss companies in fact dedicate massive resources to
making consumers believe that there are no hard choices to be made, and no necessity
to take true personal responsibility. What has resulted in the way of commercial weight
loss offerings comes not from what’s right in principle, but instead from the convoluted
efforts to avoid saying “NO” – the word they fear will cause them to lose or never get
customers.
A Slippery Slope
And so you end up with an entire industry that has ridden a downward cycle of
unprincipled compromise for the sake of commercial success, with business models
that are not aligned with the true best interests of their customers (see Essay #7: Your
Diet, from the makers of Haagen Dazs, and Essay #9: Are You Training to Be An
Astronaut?), therefore accomplishing at best only fleeting and inconsistent results. At
the heart of this problem are the classic behavioral culprits of Fear and Greed – and in
this instance, fear of business failure and desire for profit in combination overwhelm
what is right.
Just Say No
While WeightNot is certainly a fledgling enterprise relative to the likes of industry giants,
by contrast we’ve found that many, many people can in fact be given reasonable
limitations and be told “NO”, and respond positively, even enthusiastically – especially
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 34 when the reasoning is explained and the results are measureable and sustainable. And
the more we witness this across our thousands of members, the more we believe that
the path of permissiveness and compromise taken by so much of the weight loss
industry reflects a huge strategic miscalculation, and a huge disservice to consumers.
A simple piece of advice to you when it comes to weight loss – don’t surround yourself
with “Yes Men”.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 35 Essay#11:HungerGames:5TricksofBogusWeightLossProducts
Do You Sense-A Problem?
You try to apply common sense to the patently absurd proposition – “Just sprinkle some
benign, zero calorie flakes on your food. Don’t change ANYTHING about your eating
habits or lifestyle. And you’ll lose weight, guaranteed! In fact, don’t even try this
POWERFUL method unless you have at least 30 pounds to lose, since we don’t want to
be responsible for you becoming TOO thin.” You wonder, are these people modern day
alchemists who turn cake into broccoli with their magical fairy dust?
As “scientific” explanation, this particular weight loss company promotes an otherwise
unsupported theory about the smell of their product making you feel full, even though
the same common ingredients in their mysterious crystals don’t make you feel any fuller
when included in prepared foods (hmmm). Since there is a Hippocratic Oath-swearing
doctor behind this, you still have to wonder if perhaps he is a lone genius on the fringe
of medicine who has discovered an incredible breakthrough, and not someone guilty of
the most blatant quackery every perpetrated on consumers. Nonetheless, you have
trouble getting past your feeling that the whole thing sounds a little too simplistic and too
good to be true – especially since it ignores pretty much the entire body of proven
science about nutrition, exercise, physiology of hunger pathways, and probably physics.
But it seems to work …
So you ask, do people really lose weight with this product or not? Isn’t that what
matters? To your great surprise it turns out that at least some people ARE actually
getting real weight loss results and swear by the product (though clearly not all or even
most, based on discussion board posts and public reviews). Not only that, the company
has a “study” that shows how 1,400 or so obese people who used their product at every
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 36 meal for 6 months claim to have lost weight. And for comparison the company followed
another obese “control” group at the same time that didn’t use the product and indicated
that they DIDN’T lose weight. So that must be proof, right?
Sorry, but the answer is a resounding “NO”. Here is a list of tricks used by the sellers of
silly products such as this – from pills to shakes to powders – to exploit common but
often overlooked behavioral phenomena, and circumvent standard research
methodology to create the guise of legitimacy and to claim “results” that have nothing to
do with their product.
Trick #1: The Placebo Response
The product referenced above, known as Sensa, is most likely a large scale example of
the placebo response, illustrating why pharmaceutical companies are required to have
placebo control groups in their studies. The difference in response between study
participants taking a placebo and those taking the actual drug can generally be
attributed to the drug. The placebo response is really about the expectation of an
outcome by the study participant, which then triggers certain endogenous or internal
responses, both psychological and physiological. And the stronger the belief or
expectation held by the participant, the greater the potential for placebo response. As
such, the more that suggestions and signals of credibility or efficacy are used in
presenting a placebo substance, the greater the likelihood of placebo response by
recipients (for example, printing a “brand” name on a pill, or indicating “created by a
doctor,” “supported by studies,” “don’t take more than the prescribed dose,” endorsed
by “Medical Advisory Board,” etc.). But even those who don’t “believe” can experience
the placebo effect due to prior associations with past treatments.
Trick #2: Hawthorne Effect and the Power of Ritual
Bogus weight loss products also get a boost from the psychology of monitoring and
repetition. As was discovered in the late 1920’s from industrial studies conducted at
Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works plant, the mere act of measuring something can at
least temporarily increase performance or outcomes. Basically, you get what you
measure. In the case of weight loss programs or products that require meal tracking,
heightened awareness of eating times and food volumes (independent of the weight
loss product) can cause behavior change that impacts calorie consumption and speed
of consumption – and therefore results. Repetition or ritual can have a similar effect,
giving a sense of meaning, intention or “power” to an activity (especially if done in front
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 37 of others, which creates a self-consciousness and need to justify or commit, eliminating
any dissonance related to doubt about the product). So, if one ritually takes a product to
reduce hunger, the growing belief in this act can cause behavior change and results that
are again independent of the product itself.
Trick #3: “Scientific” Studies
Reference to proof of efficacy through product studies can create an immediate sense
of credibility. Unfortunately, study outcomes can be manipulated in a variety of ways
through interpretation of data, and more commonly, by neglecting to include critical
components that would otherwise ensure validation of results. Some of the study
components not likely to be found in studies for these products include – Placebo
Control Group, Dropout Analysis, Direct Measurement (versus self-reported data) and
Peer Review. Further, the parties actually conducting the studies, along with their
funding or independence, need to be fully disclosed, and the study results should be
replicable by others. (In fact, Sensa was fined $900,000 for its false claims around its
“clinical studies” – driven by exactly the problems noted above).
Trick #4: Disarming Simplicity and Magical Thinking
Most diet gimmicks present a “shockingly simple” solution to your problem, such that
you think – “wouldn’t it be great if it really was THAT easy”. The natural appeal of the
single pill, potion or powder that eliminates the hard work and thinking otherwise
required to solve our problem is compelling, in spite of our knowledge to the contrary.
Especially for problems that we don’t understand fully (e.g., why can’t I lose weight even
when I try?) this strategy can also activate our human tendency toward “magical
thinking”, which allows the story of the product, however fantastical, to fill in the gap in
our understanding.
Trick #5: Reducing Perceived Risk
Knowing that repeat customers will not be the main source of revenue once product
efficacy is exposed, the business models of these companies rely on schemes for
getting massive volumes of first-time customers. Since most fraudulent diet products
are inexpensive to produce, they can be sold profitably at low prices. These low prices,
typically combined with a “Risk Free Trial” can be enough to get otherwise sensible
people to part with their money, as the perceived risk is lowered relative to the potential
reward of magical weight loss. Do a quick search on billing complaints about Sensa and
you’ll see how this unfolds – once you’ve handed over your credit card for the order, you
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 38 are usually on the hook for a payment, generating a nice profit on a product that costs
cents to produce. Lesson learned. (On a related note, Sensa was recently required to
change its recurring billing practices as part of its $900,000 fine.)
Psychic Liposuction? Caveat Emptor.
Most scam diet products are not quite as blatant as “psychic surgery” or the “hypno lap
band” (yes, these exist), so knowing the telltale tricks of these offerings can help keep
some money in your pocket – which I’d suggest you spend on some healthy organic
foods instead.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 39 Essay#12:MedicalWeightLossClinicVitaminB12Shots?B‐Serious...
B12 Means You’ll Be Back
Walk into most medical weight loss clinics and you’ll be told that all weight loss patients
need to return weekly for vitamin B12 shots to increase or maintain energy during their
weight loss programs. Sounds medical and even magical, but here’s the dirty little
secret – these “booster shots” are just a gimmick to get you back in the door for another
billable visit, or worse, to compensate for a prescription appetite suppressant-enabled
starvation diet that has inadequate nutrition.
What is B12?
Vitamin B12 is an essential vitamin that is found in highest levels in animal food
sources, but can also be present in fortified, manufactured foods. It is required by the
body for a variety of functions, including the production of red blood cells and the
management of homocysteine levels. You can indeed become lethargic and develop
other symptoms such as gastric distress when you are deficient in B12. B12 is a water
soluble vitamin, and as such, excess B12 is eliminated quickly by the body if unused or
unneeded. This means that there is very little retention of this vitamin in the body, and
that there is a need for regular ingestion of B12. The daily recommendation for adult
men and women is .24mg (or 240mcg).
Causes of B12 Deficiency
Who really needs vitamin B12 supplementation? Primarily two groups. The first is
those who are physiologically unable to extract B12 from food sources for reasons such
as gastric bypass or similar surgery to the small intestines, thinning of the stomach
lining, long term or excessive use of antacids or excessive alcohol consumption. The
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 40 second is those who are not getting enough B12 in their diets for reasons of poor diet
(low nutrient density) or restricted diet (as with a weight loss diet or a vegetarian diet).
B12 and Weight Loss Diets
B12 supplementation is actually a good idea for those who are on a restricted calorie
diet as a precaution even when that diet includes adequate natural sources of B12.
That said, there is absolutely no reason for B12 supplementation to come in the form of
a shot. As with the food sources of the vitamin, B12 supplementation is highly effective
when taken orally – not to mention much less painful and much more convenient than
shots.
So Why B12 Shots?
First and foremost, medical weight loss clinics need a reason to bring you back (to
charge for a visit, try to sell you something else, create the impression of medical
necessity, bill insurance for a visit, etc.). They might even mix the B12 with a cocktail of
other vitamins to make it a little sexier. But you may say – “I got these shots myself,
and they really did make me feel more energetic.” Leaving aside the very powerful
placebo effect (not to be underestimated when getting a shot administered in a medical
setting – see Essay #11: Hunger Games: 5 Tricks of Bogus Weight Loss Products), the
most likely reason to feel an effect is that the diets prescribed by many medical weight
loss clinics do not provide adequate B12 on their own, while also not providing pill form
B12 supplementation. These clinics commonly use a very low calorie diet that can only
be maintained in conjunction with the use of prescription appetite suppressants – a
method that teaches you nothing, but can offer an (unhealthy) path to short term weight
loss (with poor prospects for weight loss maintenance). Since your body excretes any
excess B12 from the weekly shot within a day or so, you might go up to 6 days with
inadequate B12 intake between shots. When you return for your shot having possibly
become deficient in B12, these clinics give you a 1mg dosage of the vitamin (4x the
daily requirement). You suddenly feel better, and you buy into the necessity of these
weekly visits and shots.
If you are contemplating visiting a medical weight loss clinic, keep in mind that the
acronym for B12 Shots is B.S.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 41 Essay#13:WeightWatchers:OpiateoftheMassive
What’s the Point?
Weight Watchers is the largest paid weight loss program in the U.S., and while some
find success with the program, most do not. So it is worthwhile to understand the
reasons for this.
Weight Watchers Point System Oversimplifies (and often ignores) Nutrition
When it comes to proper food consumption, there is a moderate but necessary level of
complexity involved. Macronutrient composition, calorie level, food combinations, meal
timing, sodium levels, toxicity, inflammatory effects, estrogenic effects, fat quality and
type, chemical components, food source and cultivation methods — and numerous
other factors all need to be a part of one’s consideration when they are selecting their
food. While this may seem challenging to master at first, I happen to know firsthand
that most people are very capable of quickly learning the basics of these various
factors, and then incorporating them into their food choices during and beyond the
WeightNot program. So my personal belief is that a responsible diet program is first
and foremost about education – and most certainly NOT about dumbing down nutrition
into a point system that fails to convey critical principles necessary for healthy eating.
At first, the failure of Weight Watchers to empower its members with proper nutrition
knowledge may seem to reflect a lack of respect for the intelligence of those members.
But, this decision is more likely about a business model based on cultivating member
dependence, which would be thwarted by teaching nutritional concepts.
Weight Watchers Point System Promotes a “Gaming” Mentality
Coming up with a point system that creates a proxy for the healthiness of particular
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 42 foods, even if well-meaning, has created a key weakness for Weight Watchers –
namely, people treat it as a “game”. There is no sense of adhering to principles for the
sake of health, just an effort to “work” the system to be able to eat foods that are
desirable to the dieter, even if these are very poor choices. Thus, you witness people
allocating their points to a pan of brownies (or if Weight Watchers is lucky, to several
servings of their artificial cheesecake – see Essay #8: Artificial Cheesecake Anyone?).
Gaming a system is human nature, and we see it in many contexts where we create a
set of rewards and restrictions, but unfortunately, NUTRITION IS NOT A GAME – it is
an area where decisions are a matter of life or death, as our national health statistics so
graphically depict.
Weight Watchers Point System is Fundamentally Flawed and Has Low Efficacy
When it comes to controlling calories and managing food intake, the above issues of
oversimplification and gaming come home to roost in the failure of the program to
actually drive the proper nutritional decisions, or consistent weight loss. For example, to
counter dieter gaming and to get people to eat more fruits and vegetables (which they
gladly sacrificed for unhealthy uses of their points), Weight Watchers updated their
system to the Points Plus program, which makes these foods “free” – missing the
important fact that in practice, this is a completely ludicrous construct. Dates, for
example, are fruit, and just a handful of those could provide a full day’s worth of calories
for someone just trying to maintain their weight, while the sugar content could wreak
havoc with blood sugar levels and potentially cause increased hunger. No responsible
nutritionist would ever create such a simple-minded, un-nuanced, unsophisticated
proclamation as this. In fact, a recent New York Time article points out this very
problem – people simply aren’t losing much weight on Weight Watchers, and these
individuals are even attempting to redesign the system on their own to try to get results.
I’ve written in prior Essays about the importance of understanding the motivation of your
weight loss program provider and of incorporating training in any responsible weight
loss program, but hand in hand with these considerations is also the requirement that a
weight loss program provide critical education that supports long term PROPER
decision making.
And if you have some question about the priorities of Weight Watchers, then as with any
company, you can just look to the top leadership as representative – a revealing
exercise in this particular case.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 43 High Priest of a False Religion
As an indication of the nutritional awareness of Weight Watchers most recent CEO
David Kirchhoff, one might simply look at his AM beverage of choice – sugar-free Red
Bull (as he casually reveals in this recent WSJ blog interview). Okay, so he starts his
day with something sickeningly sweet that happens to contain poisonous artificial
sweeteners. Maybe he’d get a pass on this personal lapse in judgment if he was at
least against these substances professionally. But he is not.
As the senior-most business leader of his organization, he knows full well that the
dangerous artificial sweeteners in his Weight Watchers desserts are one of the primary
reasons that Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s won’t carry his company’s fake food
products — and yet he still produces these by the TON for his beloved members.
Which makes this CEO’s personal beverage choice emblematic of the inconsistency
between the supposed mission of Weight Watchers and its actual behavior, purposely
and negligently ignoring the science of obesity and nutrition at the cost of the health of
its members.
The “Regular Guy” Act
In his recent book, Weight Loss Boss, the Weight Watchers CEO convincingly portrays
himself as just an average guy with lots of bad habits and relatively little will power who
has “wrestled” with weight most of his adult life. The whole “I feel your pain” and “I’m
just one of you” thing is perhaps true, but it also opens him up to being fairly judged as a
representative more-than-decade-long Weight Watchers member, even if he describes
himself as a “worst case scenario.” His results should nonetheless stand as indicative
of the experience and outcome of others. And we don’t need to go beyond the
introduction of his book to learn that it took him almost a decade to reach his target
weight, for a total loss of about 40 pounds.
Now you might ask, “If Weight Watchers is even modestly effective, how in the world did
it take someone on this program a decade to lose 40 pounds, let alone the company’s
own CEO? And why would he admit that?”
Sisyphus Revisited: Perpetuating the Myth of a Lifetime Struggle
The short answer — Kirchhoff’s Weight Loss Boss serves to reinforce the depiction of
obesity as a never-ending struggle. He laments that you’re never “cured” and reveals
that he still has “a problem.” And his decade long weight loss “odyssey” (apologies to
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 44 Homer), even if accurate, is tacit permission or encouragement for others to spend
many, many years as Weight Watchers members. His story is designed to gives voice
to the PROTOTYPICAL NARRATIVE that the company wishes to impose on Weight
Watchers clients. Rather than question why Weight Watchers is so poor at achieving
weight loss (“few members ever make it” to the healthy BMI goal, he admits, making it
quite a “special occasion”) – it is accepted that reaching your goal is more theoretical
than achievable, a perpetual quest. But for good measure, he admonishes “don’t lose
more than a pound a week” (offering no scientific basis for this) – let’s draw this out
people!
Weight Watchers makes money by having customers who buy their packaged food-like
products and pay membership fees for a long time (Clue: Weight Watchers was spun off
by industrial food giant H.J. Heinz). In this context, solving a member’s weight problem
quickly, or even at all, is not necessarily a good business decision. Instead, extending
the duration of their problem — in perception or reality – is actually much more
profitable (though this takes some guile, because you need to appear to be helping).
Ideally you’d convince your customers that, even if they achieve their goal, a “relapse” is
just a forkful away, so that they commit to being lifetime customers. How to accomplish
this? Start with a very slow weight loss plan that is riddled with structural pitfalls and
challenges due to reliance on simple calorie restriction and inclusion of ridiculous food
choices. Then be sure not to educate members to make their own decisions (just give
them a fatally flawed measurement system and lots of platitudes) so they cannot
achieve true independence. Finally, focus excessively on weight gain as an emotional
problem instead of providing a nutritional solution, and create support groups where
people can commiserate and bond over the difficulty and inevitability of their problem,
thereby validating this act of misdirection. While there may have been a time when this
was the best that the world and science had to offer in weight loss, and when we had
the luxury of decades to address a slowly creeping obesity problem, that time of little
urgency — at both the individual and national levels — has certainly well passed.
Don’t Let the Truth Get in the Way of a Good Business Model
The Weight Watchers focus on profit means that they do not want to alienate ANY
customers by saying “No” (see Essay #10: The Dietary “Yes Men”). So, Weight
Watchers simply avoids taking a stand on what is NOT allowed. While some things are
categorically unhealthy (ahem, like sugar free Red Bull), they don’t acknowledge this, as
they are not really trying to provide effective weight loss and certainly not health
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 45 improvement. At least not at the cost of a customer who will quit or avoid their program
and packaged foods if they can’t have their favorite treat.
Everyman for Himself
Despite its earnest tone, the “everyman” confessional by the Weight Watchers CEO —
who has opted to stick his head in the sand rather than acknowledge the truth about his
company’s products — appears to be principally a piece of propaganda wrapped in
uncontroversial data and advice, designed to cultivate and reinforce the mythology
underpinning the company business model.
One can only hope that the congregation of Weight Watchers members eventually sees
the light – and realizes that it is not coming from the frozen foods aisle where they find
the boxes of Weight Watchers artificial cheesecake.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 46 PARTIII
CLOSINGTHOUGHTS
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com 47 PrinciplesofSuccessfulDietPrograms
The Hunger Game essays cover in depth the flawed practices of major diet programs,
but it is important to emphasize the contrasting principles that underlie a successful
approach to weight loss.
1. Nutrition Education – Quite simply, without an understanding of nutrition
principles and the way that foods impact weight and health, the weight loss from
any diet program will likely be short-lived.
2. Real Food – Marketing rhetoric aside, it is difficult to improve upon the nutrition
provided by natural foods. In fact, the efforts to engineer foods have
inadvertently become a major driver of the obesity crisis. While certain nutrients
can be more difficult to eat consistently (in which case supplementation is in
order), most nutrition should come from real foods, during and beyond periods of
weight loss.
3. Accountability – Without a willingness to take responsibility for food choices,
there is no diet program that will work. This means accepting “no” when it comes
to certain foods, while being open to new foods and healthier, sustainable
approaches to eating.
4. Training – From structured training emerges new patterns of behavior and
decision-making. As such, an effective weight loss program should involve
repeated decision-making that reinforces the behaviors aligned with long-term
weight maintenance – it is simply not enough (or a good idea) to provide the
actual prepared foods, packaged meals or meal replacements, even if these
approaches achieve short-term weight reduction.
5. Lifestyle Change and Pacing – A nutritionally sound weight loss plan that
incorporates a structured lifestyle change can safely and reliably achieve
relatively fast weight loss, with weight reduction that is greater overall and at
least as sustainable as slower diet approaches that are most typical.
An Invitation to Readers
I can speak personally to the consistent and dramatic success of WeightNot members
as a result of adherence to these principles. So in closing, and as thank you for your
time in reading Hunger Game, I invite you to request a complimentary consultation from
WeightNot, which you can do on the WeightNot web site. As part of your no-obligation
consultation, you can ask questions about your own situation and challenges, and
benefit from a brief educational session that will be of value no matter how you elect to
approach your personal weight loss.
Hunger Game ©2013 WEIGHTNOT www.WeightNot.com