Lose 1 Pound Of Belly Fat In 90 Days

Toward that end, a coalition of government, academic, and commercial weight-loss organizations last week announced new guidelines to provide consumers with better information on the risks, costs, and track records of commercial diet programs. Concerns about weight-loss programs have been growing since the early 1990s, when the Federal Trade Commission cracked down on programs that promised more than they could deliver.

 Full disclosure.  Participants in the new agreement, including Weight Watchers International and Jenny Craig, have agreed to abide by provisions aimed at helping dieters to comparison-shop among programs. Among other terms, participants must disclose the qualifications of their staffs. They must reveal health risks associated with obesity, such as high blood pressure, as well as the risks of rapid weight loss, such as dizziness, hair loss, and gallstones. Finally, they must outline all the costs of their regimes, including payments for diet foods.

Weight-loss advocates applauded the new guidelines. "This is a clear message from a consensus of responsible people that these are things that you should be able to ask about," said Patrick O'Neil, director of the Weight Management Center at Medical University of South Carolina. But some consumer groups said the companies should go even further and disclose their long-term success rates, too. Lynn MacAfee of the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination noted that many people regain weight within a year or two after joining a weight-loss program. "People don't pay all that money to lose weight and keep it off for [only] a few months," she said.

Weight-loss companies argue that outcome information is hard to track. But Richard Blumenthal, attorney general of Connecticut, says companies do measure outcomes, using a representative sample of clients. Connecticut is one of just a few states that require weight-loss organizations to report outcomes. There is no national requirement, but earlier efforts by the FTC resulted in an agreement by Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig to qualify their "before" and "after" pictures with the statement: "results not typical."

Educated consumers, more than any voluntary guidelines, are most likely to thwart marketers of products that promise instant, effortless weight loss. But if they don't, the FTC has another powerful tool at its disposal: federal laws against false advertising.

Weighing options. Consumers should be able to better compare weight-loss programs now that programs have agreed to disclose risks and costs. But consumer groups say the organizations should report outcomes, too.