New Year Resolutions : Weigh(t) Options

The slimming products industry boasts wonderful sales figures in January as the recent festive gluttony and New Year's resolutions have thousands seeking a short-cut to fat shedding.

But Cape Town dietician Maya Snijders-Naumann says the industry "sells the idea to millions of overweight people that you can solve a problem without solving it - no responsibility for your actions, no work".

Last week in a pharmacy I overheard a woman tell an assistant that she was "desperate" to lose weight and then ask whether a certain weight-loss product worked.

"Yes," the assistant replied, with certainty.

In another pharmacy I asked an assistant which product among the many on sale was the most effective and he singled out one without any hesitation.

These were sales assistants, not pharmacists, offering apparently authoritative advice to consumers who've been socialised to regard a pharmacy as a credible source of medical wisdom.

"Nobody manning a shop floor should be giving dietary advice," says Professor Tessa van der Merwe, who heads the country's first specialised centre for obesity in Pretoria, and chairs the SA Society for the Study of Obesity.

"Obesity is a medical condition, not a cosmetic issue."

For Van der Merwe, the problem is deadly serious.

"People make a huge mistake believing that 'herbal' remedies are harmless. If they take more than the recommended dose - which many do - the 'herbs' can have catastrophic interactions with drugs for high blood pressure, diabetes and cardiovascular conditions - exactly the diseases that obese people develop and are likely to be medicated for."

Many of the ingredients in weight loss products have been found to aid weight loss, Van der Merwe says, but in massive concentrations.

"In order to sell their products at a reasonable price, the manufacturers use the active ingredients in concentrations so minute as to make them totally ineffective."

And here's the really sobering news: "Of the few products that have been found to be effective for weight loss in controlled studies, the effect never lasts more than four weeks because the body becomes tolerant to the ingredients, and the greatest result of all the studies was a loss of just over 1kg."

nAmong the many products currently on sale are a number of USN (Ultimate Sports Nutrition) products which were the subject of Advertising Standards Authority rulings last November. They include:

USN Leanfast snack bar: Complainant Dr Harris Steinman said the words "leanfast" and "low calorie nutrition snack" implied that it would aid weight loss when it actually contains 1996,4kJ per 100g - almost the same as a slab of full cream chocolate.

In response, USN undertook to amend the words "low calorie" but said "Leanfast" was the name of the product and did not imply slimming or weight loss. Unsurprisingly, the ASA disagreed.

The company has until February to rid the shelves of the current Leanfast bars.

USN Phedra-Cut Stimulant-Free: Dr Steinman contended that the product's claims on its website - "burns fat for energy", "helps control carb storage", "advanced appetite control" and "increases metabolic rate" required substantiation. The company offered to change the claims.