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THE WORST DIETS OF 2008!

NEWS RELEASE - Dec. 29, 2008

The Worst Diet Promotions of 2008
snag 20th Annual Slim Chance Awards

HETTINGER, ND – Healthy Weight Network released its 20th annual Slim Chance Awards today, highlighting both the hidden dangers of diets and supplements that often contain unknown ingredients and sometimes potent drugs, and the merely ridiculous.

To call 2008 a typical year in the weight loss field would be too easy. This year’s awards go to an infamous huckster of diet infomercials, known for his outrageous disregard of injunctions against him; $139 body-shaping jeans impregnated with substances that supposedly reduce cellulite; a pill that’s “proven” to help your belly fat vanish; and a dangerous starvation diet launched recklessly on the Internet with promises of safe, fast and permanent weight loss.

All in all, a typical year that synthesizes all that is deceptive and exploitive in this field. So, here they are, the 20th annual Slim Chance Awards:

MOST OUTRAGEOUS CLAIM: Kevin Trudeau infomercials. It’s rare that regulatory agencies look at books, given our free speech laws, but the infomercials for Kevin Trudeau’s weight loss book and his repeated violations were just too much for the Federal Trade Commission, and this past August he was fined over $5 million and banned from infomercials for three years. In “willful efforts” to deceive, Trudeau told listeners they could easily follow the diet protocol at home, even though his book calls for human growth hormone injections and colonics that must be done by a licensed practitioner. The tortured case began in 1998 when FTC charged Trudeau with false and misleading diet infomercials. In 2003 he was charged with false claims; in 2004 he was fined $2 million and banned from infomercials. Again in 2007 a contempt action said he misled thousands with false claims for his weight loss book “in flagrant violation” of court orders.

WORST GIMMICK:  Skineez jeans ($139). A new item in the fight against cellulite, Skineez jeans are impregnated with a so-called “medication” of retinol and chitosan, a shellfish product once claimed to cut fat absorption in the stomach (see 1999 Slim Chance Awards). Friction between the jeans and skin supposedly triggers release of the substance, which goes to work on fat when absorbed through the skin. Reportedly a big hit in Europe, the “smart fabric” is also used in lingerie. Ironically, the creators of Skineez, Clothes for a Cause, profess to raise funds for breast cancer and “a wide range of other socially conscious charities.” So while the company hoodwinks women into buying an expensive pair of jeans, it promises they can “do good with every purchase … As our sales grow, so will our ability to help others.” FTC, however, is clear about such gimmicks, emphasizing that products worn or rubbed on the skin do not cause weight loss or fat loss.

WORST CLAIM: AbGONE. Throughout 2008 full page ads assaulted the eye in daily newspapers across the country touting AbGONE as “proven to promote pot belly loss.”  Claims are that AbGONE increases “fat metabolism” and calorie burn, promotes appetite suppression and inhibits future abdominal fat deposits. These are drug claims that, if true, would alter the body’s regulation, but unlike drugs, the pills are sold as food supplements not requiring FDA approval. The bold ads feature the obligatory before and after shots of models, cut-away sketches of the abdomen with and without belly fat, and a white-coated researcher with chart purportedly confirming success of 5 times reduction in fat mass, 4 times lower BMI, 4 times greater weight loss than placebo. No added diet and exercise needed – well, except, you may want to heed the fine print disclaimer at the bottom that reminds us “diet and exercise are essential.”

WORST PRODUCT: Kimkins diet. It must have seemed an easy way to get rich quick. Founder Heidi “Kimmer” Diaz set up a website and charged members a fee to access the Kimkins diet, boasting they could lose up to 5 percent of their body weight in 10 days. “Better than gastric bypass,” there was “no faster diet,” and in fact she herself had lost 198# in 11 months. Stunning “after” photos were displayed. In June 2007 Women's World ran it as a cover story, and that month alone PayPal records show the Kimkins site took in over $1.2 million. Then users began complaining of chest pains, hair loss, heart palpitations, irritability and menstrual irregularities. This was not surprising since Kimkins is essentially a starvation diet, down to 500 calories per day and deficient in many nutrients (appallingly, laxatives are advised to replace missing fiber). In a lawsuit, 11 former members are uncovering a vast record of Diez’s alleged fraud. They found that the stunning “after” photos, including one of Kimmer herself, had been lifted from a Russian mail order bride site. According to a deposition reported by Los Angeles TV station KTLA, Diaz admitted using fake pictures, fake stories and fake IDs, and a judge has allowed the litigants to freeze some of her assets.

“Today’s economic downturn can remind us how foolish it is to waste money on unsafe, ineffective and energy-draining weight loss efforts,” said Francie M. Berg, a licensed nutritionist and adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine, whose organization Healthy Weight Network started the Slim Chance Awards 20 years ago. The National Council Against Health Fraud, for which she is coordinator of the task force for Weight Loss Abuse, co-sponsors the awards.

They’re part of the lead-up to “Rid the World of Fad Diets and Gimmicks Day” during Healthy Weight Week, which falls from January 18 to 24 in 2009.

With the New Year upon us, resolutions freshly on our minds, Berg is advising people to skip dieting and move ahead with healthy habits that last a lifetime.

“Here’s a plan for the new year that’s free, freeing of your spirit and available to all,” she said.

- Record your dieting history (weight lost, weight regained, favorable and ill effects, time frame of each). Reflect on what you have written.

- Resolve to follow a healthy diet-free lifestyle through 2009, adapting guidelines that work for you. (Handouts available at www.healthyweight.net/handouts.htm).

It’s a way to get your life on track, improve your health and move on with what’s really important in your life, Berg explained. For more information contact Healthy Weight Network or visit www.healthyweightnetwork.com

###

For more information see www.healthyweight.net/hww.htm

CONTACT:
Francie M. Berg
fmberg@healthyweight.net
701-567-2646
Healthy Weight Network
402 South 14th Street
Hettinger, ND 58639
www.healthyweight.net

MEDIA: To arrange an interview with Francie Berg call 701-567-2646 or email fmberg@healthyweight.net  (please begin subject line with: Berg ….).

- END –

What are the Slim Chance Awards?

The 21st Annual Slim Chance Awards are announced at year's end as a lead up to Rid the World of Fad Diets & Gimmicks Day, Jan 19, 2010, Tuesday of Healthy Weight Week (the third full week in January). They expose the widespread fraud and quackery in the weight loss field, and are aimed at helping consumers move on from chronic dieting to improving their lives in more positive and lasting ways.

They are truly the “worst” of the worst of the many weight-loss products and programs that flood the internet, the airwaves, and the pages of print materials in seemingly increasing numbers. Diet quackery defrauds, disables and kills.

See below for listing of 80 past "winners" of these dubious awards.

The Slim Chance Awards are:

• Part of the lead up to “Rid the World of Fad Diets and Gimmicks Day” on Tuesday of Healthy Weight Week
• Nominated by health professionals and consumers worldwide, with a November 15th deadline for nominations
• Selected by a panel of judges
• Sponsored by Healthy Weight Network and the National Council Against Health Fraud
• Part of a 20-year tradition that began in 1989, undertaken by Francie M. Berg of Healthy Weight Network as a reaction to the glut of unsafe and exploitive products on the market.
  

Please send us your nominations for Slim Chance Awards by Nov. 15 (in 2008 and every year). Awards are presented in the following four categories:

• Most Outrageous Claim
• Worst Claim
• Worst Product
• Worst Gadget

Send nominations to Francie Berg, Coordinator Task Force on Weight Loss Abuse, National Council Against Health Fraud, Healthy Weight Network; 402 South 14th Street; Hettinger, ND 58639, along with supporting material or online link if possible.
Click here to email using the subject line: Berg – Healthy Weight Week

Diet quackery information and consumer handouts available on website.
Other websites identifying fraud and quackery are: www.quackwatch.com and www.ncahf.org

During Healthy Weight Week people are encouraged to improve health habits in lasting ways:

• Live actively
• Eat normally and nutritiously
• Accept, respect and feel good about yourself and others
  

It’s a time to celebrate the diversity of real women, as well as men, and to help them shift focus from failed and risky weight loss efforts to being healthy at their natural sizes. Healthy Weight Week is a time for people to move ahead with a new approach and build confident, diet-free lives for themselves and those they love.
Healthy Weight Week

Handouts: Healthy Living at Every Size
Healthy Living Guidelines

The “worst” of the worst weight-loss products and programs
Most Outrageous – Worst Claim – Worst Product – Worst Gimmick!

For further details on the above products, click here.

The Slim Chance Awards are selected from products nominated by health professionals and consumers and reflect the opinion of
the panel making the judgments.

How to Identify Fraud

Weight Loss Fraud and Quackery
Guidelines for identification

Frances M. Berg, M.S.

Fraudulent weight loss products and programs often rely on unscrupulous but persuasive combinations of the message, program, ingredients, mystique and method of availability. A weight loss product or program may be fraudulent if it does one or more of the following:

Message

• Claims or implies a large, fast weight loss — often promised as easy, effortless, guaranteed or permanent. (Recommended loss for most people is no more than two pounds per week.)
• Implies weight can be lost without restricting calories or exercising, and discounts the benefits of exercise.
• Uses typical quackery terms such as: miraculous, breakthrough, exclusive, secret, unique, ancient, accidental discovery, doctor developed.
• Claims to get rid of “cellulite.” Cellulite does not exist and reference to it is a red flag warning of fraud or misinformation.
• Relies heavily on undocumented case histories, before and after photos, and testimonials by “satisfied customers” (who are often paid for testimony which is written by the advertiser).
• Misuses medical or technical terms, refers to studies without giving complete references, claims government approval.
• Professes to be a treatment for a wide range of ailments and nutritional deficiencies as well as for weight loss.
• Makes claims that are not stated on the label.

Program

• Promotes a medically unsupervised diet of less than 1000 calories per day.
• Diagnoses nutrient deficiencies with computer-scored questionnaire and prescribes vitamins and supplements (rather than a balanced diet). Recommends them in excess of 100% of Recommended Dietary Allowance.
• Requires special foods purchased from the company rather than conventional foods.
• Promotes aids and devices such as body wraps, sauna belts, electronic muscle stimulators, passive motion tables, ear stapling, aromatherapy, appetite patches and acupuncture.
• Promotes a nutritional plan without relying on at least one counselor or author with nutrition credentials. (Many who self-identify as “nutritionists” have no credentials. Licensed nutritionists, nutrition educators and dietitians do. The science of nutrition is taught only through college Family Consumer Science, Dietetics and related departments.)
• Fails to state risks or recommend a medical exam.
  

Ingredients

• Uses unproven, bogus or potentially dangerous ingredients such as dinitrophenol, spirulina, amino acid supplements, glucomannan, human chorionic gonadotrophin hormone (HCG), diuretics, slimming teas, echinacia root, bee pollen, fennel, chickweed, ephedra and starch blockers.
• Claims ingredients will block digestion or surround calories, starches, carbohydrates or fats, and remove them from the body.

Mystique

• Encourages reliance on a guru figure who has the “ultimate answers.”
• Grants mystical properties to certain foods or ingredients.
• Bases plan on faddish ideas, such as food allergies, forbidden foods, blood type or “magic combinations” of foods.
• Declares that the established medical community is against this discovery and refuses to accept its miraculous benefits.
  
  

Method of availability

• Is sold by self-proclaimed health advisors or “nutritionists,” often door-to-door, in “health food” stores, or a chiropractor’s office.
• Distributes through hard-sell mail order advertisements, television infomercials, or ads that list only a toll-free number without any address, indicating possible Postal Service action against the company.
• Demands large advance payments or long-term contracts. (Payment should be pay-as-you-go, or refundable.)
• Uses high pressure sales tactics, one-time-only deals, or recruitment for a pyramid sales organization. Displays prominent money-back guarantee. (A common complaint against such companies is that this is an empty promise and they do not honor their guarantees).

Questions and complaints should be directed to your State Attorney General’s Office, Consumer Affairs. Other agencies concerned with fraud are the FDA, FTC, Postal Service and Better Business Bureau.

Excerpted from “Weight Loss Fraud and Quackery,” by Francie M. Berg. Copyright 1995. Healthy Weight Network, Hettinger, ND.

News Release, Dec. 2007

The Four ‘Worst’ Diet Plans
of 2007

It’s bad enough to falsely claim that our bodies retain wastes and need to be cleansed periodically. But this year’s diet gimmick with the “most outrageous claim” takes it one step farther and touts cleansing as a way to lose weight because people “have between 6 and 40 pounds of waste, feces and undigested food stuck inside their bodies.”

The 19th annual Slim Chance Awards spotlight the advertising by Evercleanse and three other diet aids for the “worst” weight loss products and promotions of 2007, as announced today by Francie M. Berg, Coordinator of the Weight Loss Abuse Task Force for the National Council Against Health Fraud.

“It’s outrageous and offensive that the Evercleanse hucksters are telling people they are excessively heavy due to waste stuck within their colons ,” said William M. London, EdD, MPH , Professor, Health Science Program, College of Health and Human Services, California State University, Los Angeles , and a member of the panel evaluating the diet promotions.

If toxins and waste were really retained in the body, the human race would not have survived, said Vincent F. Cordaro, MD, an FDA medical officer. “The whole concept is irrational and unscientific.”

The Slim Chance Awards for 2007:

• Most Outrageous Claim: Evercleanse. Ads claim that being overweight or having a protruding abdomen are symptoms of a toxic colon. “You must detoxify your body … Yes – 6 to 40 pounds of undigested food, waste and feces are stuck inside our bodies.”
  
  
• Worst Product: HoodiaHerbal (also called Hoodia Maximum Strength). The FTC in August called a halt to illegal emails and Web form hijacking from spammers of this operation and charged they falsely claimed their supposed “hoodia” products cause permanent weight loss of as much as 40 pounds a month.
  
  
• Worst Claim: Bio SpeedSLIM. Billed as a major breakthrough that without any change in eating or activity: reduces pot belly, waist, hips, BMI and weight; suppresses hunger and cravings; promotes burning of excess body fat and gain of lean body mass. Also markets colon cleansing.
  
  
• Worst Gimmick: Hollywood Detox Body Wrap. Claimed to draw toxins out through the skin and cause long term loss of 4 to 6 inches in less than an hour.

“Pills sold as food supplements and weight-loss aids can do more harm than good,” Berg warned. “They are not subject to rigorous health standards, and can be marketed without proof of safety or effectiveness.”

In the past two years she believes there is more weight loss advertising than ever before. This glut may be attributed to two factors, she contends. First, the ease and low cost of sending out spam mail and setting up websites. And second, the desperation that vulnerable consumers are now feeling under relentless pressure to lose weight from the media and health community

There is no magic bullet. The only way to lose weight and keep it off is through changing lifestyle habits, said Berg, a licensed nutritionist and Adjunct Professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine.

Habit change occurs gradually, one small step at a time, one reason why “going on a diet” doesn’t work. People who diet try to change everything at once and soon give up. Instead, they need to first normalize their lives: stop dieting, eat nutritiously of all five food groups, engage in regular physical activity and let excess weight come off as the by-product of a more stable lifestyle.

Berg’s organization, Healthy Weight Network, started the Slim Chance Awards
20 years ago to help educate consumers. They are part of the lead-up to
Healthy Weight Week, January 18 to 24, 2009.

Sponsored by Healthy Weight Network and the National Council Against Health Fraud, the Slim Chance Awards are selected from nominations by health professionals and consumers and reflect the opinion
of the panel making judgments.

###

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