The problem, of course, lies not with any of these weight loss ambassadors. It lies with the product. If there is one clear and unambiguous message from this list of celebrity ambassadorships gone awry, it’s that Jenny Craig and products like it do not work in the long term.
It doesn’t work if you’re a celebrity. And it doesn’t work if you’re just an average Kath, Kim or Sharon.
Fifty years of scientific research tells us that only 5 per cent of people can maintain their weight loss from dieting. Yes, there are some success stories, but for every five people who succeed, 95 people fail.
With such damning rates it is extraordinary that we still blame individuals for ”failing” at weight loss programs rather than accusing the diet companies of selling snake oil. Can you imagine buying any other product with a 95 per cent failure rate and then blaming yourself when it didn’t deliver on its promise?
A 2008 Monash University study found participants blamed themselves for being unable to maintain their weight loss or ”stick” to diets even though they also said that they were ”seduced” by the consultants’ ”spiel”. Some said the expense and the time they would need to be on the program to lose a substantial amount of weight was unrealistic.
More shocking is evidence that some diet companies know their product doesn’t work. In her book Bodies, for example, the British psychotherapist Susie Orbach recounts a story in which a former manager of WeightWatchers in Britain said she was dismayed at how unsuccessful the company was in helping people to keep the weight off. Orbach notes that the failure of these products shouldn’t surprise us. After all, if they were truly effective, it would be disastrous for the companies’ bottom lines. ”Their profitability depends upon failure and their programs ensure that failure happens.”
Author: Google News
Full article source: http://sl.farmonline.com.au/news/metro/national/general/all-diet-customers-are-losing-is-their-dignity-possums/2538113.aspx
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