THE WEIGHT LOSS INDUSTRY: A PARADOX

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Worldometers: https://www.worldometers.info/weight-loss/

Up until 2012, the weight loss industry thrived, but there was a paradox. As more money was spent on weight loss programs and products, more people became overweight or obese. Medical weight loss facilities, pharmacies, and health food stores displayed countless and proven pills, injections, and plans that promoted safe, fast, easy, and convenient weight loss. The weight loss giants - Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, and Nutri-System, promoted their success stories vis-à-vis highly recognizable celebrities. The mere presence of these testimonials instilled a sense of urgency and perhaps desperation to lose weight and lose it quickly. Let us not forget that these people earn astronomical amounts of money for their endorsements. According to ABC News, the average salary for celebrity endorsers ranges from “$500,000 to $3 million” (ABC News. 2012). Fat-free morphed into sugar-free, and the food industry itself capitalized on obesity. In The Guardian’s 2013 article, Fat profits: how the food industry cashed in on obesity, Jacques Peretti wrote:

"Weight Watchers, created by New York housewife Jean Nidetch in the early 1960s, was bought by Heinz in 1978, who in turn sold the company in 1999 to investment firm Artal for $735m. The next in line was Slimfast, a liquid meal replacement invented by chemist and entrepreneur Danny Abraham, which was bought in 2000 by Unilever, which also owns the Ben & Jerry brand and Wall's sausages. The US diet phenomenon Jenny Craig was bought by Swiss multinational Nestlé, which also sells chocolate and ice- cream. In 2011, Nestlé was listed in Fortune's Global 500 as the world's most profitable company" (Peretti, J. 2013).

Recently, the recession forced less spending on professional weight loss services. This does not mean that there are fewer individuals spending less time on dieting or struggling to lose weight. On the contrary, the rate of obesity continues to climb and digs deeper into America’s youth. The irony, more than 60% of American adults are overweight or obese and more than 31% of American children, but according to Feeding America, 1 out of 6 Americans deal with hunger.

However, people now opt for a Do It Yourself (DIY) plan instead of paying significant amounts of money to corporate or medical weight loss programs and facilities, and invest their hard-earned money on healthier food selections, benefitting from the substantial research on sugar addiction as well as the overall health risks associated to inactivity and a sedentary lifestyle.

Furthermore, cheap or free access to internet diet plans, the increase in organic and holistic food plans, vegan, gluten-free are additional factors that have contributed to the partial collapse of the weight loss industry. The U.S. Weight Loss Market: 2014 Status Report & Forecast reports that the US weight loss market in 2013 “declined by 1.8% to $60.5 billion, largely as a result of slumping diet soft drink sales, and flat performance in most other market segments—including the large chains, and the 2014 forecast is only a 1.2% growth” (Marketdata. 2014).

The fundamental issue is that the concept of a ‘diet’ is a lifestyle choice and necessitates a change in thinking from not merely losing weight or dieting but shifting the focus to promotions of general health and wellness.

References

ABC News Staff. (2012). 100 Million Dieters, $20 Billion: The Weight-Loss Industry by the Numbers. Retrieved from: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/100-million-dieters-20-billion-weight-loss-industry/story?id=16297197

Barosh, L., Friel, .S, Engelhardt, K., and Chan, L. (2014). The cost of a healthy and sustainable diet--who can afford it? National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health. Australian National University. National Institutes of Health. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24494938

Feeding America. (2014). Hunger Facts. Retrieved from: https://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-facts.aspx

Marketdata Enterprises Inc. (2014). The U.S. Weight Loss Market: 2014 Status Report & Forecast. Retrieved from: https://www.marketresearch.com/Marketdata-Enterprises-Inc-v416/Weight-Loss-Status-Forecast-8016030/

Peretti, J. (2013). Fat profits: how the food industry cashed in on obesity. The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/aug/07/fat-profits-food-industry-obesity