How to Spot a Bad Weight-Loss Product
Save your money – and your health. Avoid magic bullet solutions.
On sleepless nights you may find yourself giving in to a late-night food craving with TV remote in hand, watching infomercials that promise six-pack abs or weight-loss with no effort. But, alas, there’s no magic bullet.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the agency that regulates advertising claims, has gone after many a weight loss marketer who has stretched the truth or flat out scammed consumers.
How do you steer clear of the traps laid by such marketers? The FTC recommends consumers be skeptical about any product touting the following:
• Lose two pounds or more per week without dieting or exercise
• Causes weight loss no matter what or how much you eat, or if you wear the product on the body or rub it into the skin
• Causes permanent weight loss (even if you stop using the product)
• Blocks the absorption of fat or calories.
Don’t Waste Your Health
Sometimes dangerous, often unproven weight-loss measures can jeopardize your health. Talk to your doctor before trying fasting, liquid diets and strict or restrictive diets. Those methods can effectively restrict calorie intake, helping you lose weight, but they can also cause muscle loss, medication absorption problems, gall bladder and kidney stress, energy lows, constipation and more.
Your best bet for your physical – and fiscal – health is to lose weight by cutting back on calories with a well-rounded diet and being more active, and avoiding tempting traps.
