In the same week that we learn of the UK’s bold new restrictions on weight loss advertising, the world’s most valuable brand debuts a plan of attack. Like tobacco in the 1960s, sweetened beverages are coming under fire so Coca Cola is launching a volley to reposition its brand in the face of intensifying criticism …
Category: weight loss marketing
Weight Loss Claims: Do You Have a Right to Be Lied To?
How much do you think you are influenced by the media? Has marketing and advertising affected how you’ve tried to take control of your weight? Most definitely. We’ve all bought products, we’ve all bought gadgets, we’ve all tried programs. Even when we think we’re finally getting smart, some product will come along with a pitch …
Obesity in America: Facing Obvious Truths
As usual for me, I have a cable news channel on while I’m here at my desk. The running news crawl at the bottom of the screen is quite interesting today! A headline about how being fat is maybe GOOD for you is being followed immediately by a headline about how fructose can drive you …
In the Grip of Obesity Fear
Many believe the answer to the obesity pandemic is education—Educate people about nutrition, physical activity, and health matters. But many of the messages being broadcast the most loudly are not just distorted and misleading, for some of us, they add to our increasing stress and worry. I believe that profit-driven changes in food processing and …
Is Walmart’s “Great For You” Product Line About Health or Profit?
When his son questions why the overweight cop in the conspicuously tight uniform is eating a certain “healthy” breakfast cereal, Dad replies in a weary, hopelessly resigned voice, “Gotta do something.” I don’t remember the cereal this commercial was advertising. It ran so long ago, it pre-dated the deluge of “healthy food” products and marketing …
Fad Diet Friday: Alternate Day Diet
The creator of the “Alternate Day Diet” is a medical doctor who claims he uses the “off” day to eat at McDonald’s. I see a lot of potential for abuse for a fad diet like this! Just the claim of “twice the results by dieting half the time” should be enough of a giveaway. Watch …
Are Weight Loss “Tips and Tricks” Just a Distraction?
A post in my Facebook news feed today ominously warned that TWELVE EXCESS CALORIES a day will pack on a pound in a year! That’s two Saltines! Comments included thanks for the “wake up call” and a joke about breath mint consumption. In my book I call this “Magical Math.” It’s a popular fallback on …
One Weird Old Post: Weight Loss Hype
Burn fat with these five foods! Cut down belly fat with this one weird old tip! Foods that kill belly fat! You’ve seen these ads on the Internet a million times. You know they can’t be true, but you want to hope…maybe? You can’t resist looking! I never have been able to find out the “one …