Thin End Of The Wedge?

Calling all couch potatoes. If you pop round to your local Chartbusters, not only can you pick up a DVD and top up your tan, you can try to lose weight too. After a visit to Chartbusters, you can watch a movie, admire Angelina Jolie’s body, then pop a pill to see if it’ll help you get one like that for yourself.
Dropping into my local Chartbusters over the weekend, I saw pamphlets on the counter for a weight-loss product called Thermoslimmers. When I asked for the trial pack, the skinny girl behind the counter handed me over a bottle without a word. Damn, does my butt look big in these jeans? I am a size eight, but perhaps she thought I needed to shift a few pounds for the bikini season. No matter, I am an adult and it’s not her problem if I have an unrealistic body image.
The product literature for Thermoslimmers sounds like a dream come true if you want to lose weight but aren’t all that keen on exercise. The opening paragraph promises that the manufacturer has “discovered the foolproof, easy way of losing weight and it [isn’t] by going to the gym everyday, I can tell you.” Thermoslimmers claims to have the same effect as exercise – raising your metabolic rate so you’ll burn off the calories. In addition it promises to “drastically suppress your appetite.”
As Thermoslimmers promise to make me less keen on my nosh, I am a little confused. After all, your body’s metabolism slows down if you eat less. This is why appetite suppressants are only useful initially while trying to lose weight. If you don’t eat enough, your body thinks it is being starved and will not convert food into energy, but store it as fat. Ironically, dieting can cause you to gain weight.
My first question was “Will the pills work?” I called into a health shop to get some advice. The friendly assistant helped me check out the ingredients. Thermoslimmers contain Coleus Forskohli, which is frequently used in weight management to stimulate digestion and metabolism. So chances are good, she said, that the pills might increase my metabolism, at least for a while.
I decided to get a second opinion at the local pharmacy. The pharmacist refused to be drawn on the efficacy of Thermoslimmers themselves but tells me that diet pills, including these, are not of any long-term benefit for weight loss. If you want to lose weight, he said, eat properly and get some exercise. Sound advice maybe, but not as seductive as a magic pill.
The second question I asked was “Are these tablets dangerous?” Over-the-counter slimming tablets can cause a number of unpleasant side effects, including nervousness, insomnia, palpitations, hair loss, menstrual problems, blurred vision and tingling in the extremities. However, neither the pharmacist nor health shop assistant thought that Thermoslimmers would be dangerous. For the most part, the product is made up of herbs and minerals. For a normal healthy person, taking the tablets should not have any major side effects.
The Thermoslimmers leaflet states that pregnant or nursing women, adolescents or people with a known medical condition should not take the pills. Furthermore, it warns that the pills could give you too much energy, cause tingling in the arms and legs or butterflies in the stomach. The pamphlet suggests if I have any problems to call the product information line or the outlet where I bought the pills as “the counter staff are all highly trained.” I phoned up Chartbusters complaining that the pills made me feel dizzy. The girl on the end of the phone was concerned, asked if I had a medical condition, was pregnant and had been eating but could not offer any advice beyond what I could read in the brochure. In fairness, she suggested I see my doctor and asked me to call back to tell them how I got on.
I am not suggesting that Thermoslimmers are harmful. If anything, the availability of slimming tablets in Chartbusters reflects a dichotomy in society as a whole: we are heavier than ever, but there are more ‘solutions’ to this than ever before. Almost every month, a new diet is touted by the media as the best and easiest answer to weight problems. In the last year we have had the Atkins diet, the South Beach diet and the GI diet. Last week, the Sunday Times’ Style Magazine suggested fasting on alternative days as an effective way to manage your weight. Whatever the merits of these respective diets, the problem is we are looking for quick-fix solutions instead of seriously examining our eating habits and lifestyles.
The government’s National Taskforce on Obesity recently reported that obesity is one of the fast-growing health problems in Ireland. Almost 50% of the nation is overweight and as many as one in eight of us is obese. That’s a 30% increase in obesity levels over the last four years. The Taskforce suggests the promotion of healthy eating habits and more active lifestyles to tackle the problem. Like my pharmacist, the Taskforce’s message is simple: Eat better and exercise more. There are no magic cures for weight problems. And for a lot of us, that may prove the hardest pill to swallow.
As a nation we may need to slim down, but it needs to be asked if diet pills should be endorsed by a chain store whose major business is renting celluloid dreams acted out by some of the world’s most beautiful people. After all, while you are watching a DVD, you are not exercising. For the most part, weight problems stem from both bad eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle. You know the kind of thing I mean – sitting on your couch, eating crisps and watching movies.