It isn’t only the muscle and fitness magazines packed with weight loss product propaganda that profit from an overweight population eager to learn how to be slim and trim, it’s every part of American media- from the news to talk shows. Ask any publicist in how to get on TV and they will tell you that the key stories are weight loss, sex and aging. These issues have always captivated large audiences and the obesity epidemic has given birth to a slew of weight loss reality shows in addition to the bombardment of diet and weight loss tips that flood the airwaves. By making weight loss information a form of entertainment the media does more to confuse people actively seeking credible information on how to improve their health. Unfortunately, the message of healthy lifestyle, exercise and balance isn’t sensational enough and won’t do to entertain the masses so a new and exciting new diet, breakthrough, study, , exercise or system has to be introduced all the time. The result- a confused pubic that stays fat but tunes in to see what they can try next to get into shape.

Keeping Us Fat- Why Not Losing Weight Is Profitable

Diets don’t work and weight loss supplements don’t work- most people are aware of this on some level and yet it doesn’t stop Americans from spending 46 to as much as 100 billion dollars a year on diet products and self help diet books. Studies, (and the personal experience of about anyone you know), have shown that two thirds of Americans that went on a diet regained all the weight they had lost within one year. A whopping 97% gained it all back within a period of five years! [1] The question thus becomes why isn’t the success rate higher at a time when there is more weight loss information out there than ever before? Studies have proven that  lifestyle and not genetics are to blame for our current weight crisis so achieving a healthy body weight is possible for the majority of the population, and yet for all the information, products and medical knowledge at our disposal there are still 1 billion overweight adults on the planet and that number continues to rise.(2) Could it be that on some level it is more profitable to have an overweight population rather than a healthy one?
There is an unavoidable cacophony of contradictory information and weight loss propaganda that exists in our society. It acts as background noise that drowns out the basic (and mostly hard to profit from) tenets that have helped millions of people stay in shape. Namely, a lifestyle change where you avoid high calorie processed foods and incorporate a regular routine of exercise. This approach has been validated by numerous studies and millions of people around the world are able to sustain a healthy weight and fitness level by following these guidelines, so why are we bombarded by so many other ways to lose weight? Given the stakes it seems almost a crime to lead the public on a wild goose chase when so much is at stake in terms of health and when a crime is committed the first step towards identifying the perpetrator is to ask the question ‘Cui bono?’- literally ‘who stands to gain?’ In this case you can’t help but notice that our overweight population is worth billions to the not only the diet, fitness and weight loss industry, but also to the food industry, medical and pharmaceutical industries and interestingly enough the media at large.

How The Diet Industry Profits From Keeping Us Fat

Diets like Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers, The Zone Diet, NutriSystem, The Atkins Diet, Weight Watchers, The Ornish Diet, The South Beach Diet, Slim-Fast and the always popular Subway diet all have two major things in common:
1.      Their abysmal long term success rate.
2.      The fact that you have to spend money to follow them.
According to figures from a Forbes report, the above mentioned weight loss diet costs an average of $85.79 a week! That’s more than $30 more than the $54.44 that the average single American spends on food![3] Not only is it expensive but each weight loss plan banks on your failure- that way you will remain a long term customer. It puzzles me that our society allows for an industry that keeps growing in spite of the fact that most of their customers fail. It is equally bewildering that so many different diet systems thrive on the market today. Logically the very existence of so many different systems actually highlights their inherent ineffectiveness. If only one diet system, self help book or workout dvd could provide a safe and effective way for everyone to lose weight and keep it off, then all the others would be out of business.  Instead it makes perfect sense that noise from the diet and weight loss industry should serve to confuse the public in an attempt to keep us fat and their coffers overflowing.
While the economy wallows in the doldrums, the food industry continues to profit by appealing to the nation’s desire for ‘health food products.’

How The Medical Industry Profits From Keeping Us Fat

Surgical procedures are the ultimate quick fix for weight loss and not surprisingly the number of active surgeons performing bariatric weight reduction operations like gastric banding, gastric bypass and variants of these stomach surgeries jumped nearly 500 percent
from 168 in 1993 to 860 in 2003 as the number of gastric bypass surgeries climbed more than 600% during the same period. [4] At an average cost of $30,000 per procedure [4], fees paid mainly by health insurance providers or government health benefit programs with your taxpayer money, it is easy to see how profitable it is for the medical industry. Liposuction is the most popular form of plastic surgery for men and women combined with more than half a million women having the procedure each year.[5] At an average cost of $2500 per procedure it doesn’t take much to realize that it is a huge cash cow for the plastic surgery field.
Equally profitable are prescription diet drugs. Doctor prescribed appetite suppressants and fat absorption inhibitors net millions for the drug companies that make them. Research has shown that while over the short term prescription dietary drugs can help reduce weight and potentially reduce temporarily reduce health risks in obese individuals it is only a short lived benefit as there is no concurrent change in lifestyle. Interestingly enough there are currently no studies to determine the effect of these medications over the long term. Not that we really need them as these drugs can only be administered for a period of weeks and if they were truly effective a single pill would have stopped the obesity epidemic a long time ago!

How The Pharmaceutical Industry Profits By Keeping Us Fat

Unfortunately it is not only the diet and weight loss branches of the pharmaceutical community that profit from you being overweight and staying that way. We know being overweight or obese increases the risk of coronary heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia (high cholesterol or triglyceride levels) and stroke [6]. Thus it should be no surprise that Lipitor- a statin drug designed to reduce cholesterol was the number one best selling drug not only in the United States in 2006 but in the entire world with an impressive 14 billion dollars in US sales alone for the pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer![7] To put things in perspective, in the United States, Lipitor made more than twice as much as the nearest other drug, the asthma medication Advair. Not surprisingly several other drugs in the top ten were also used to treat obesity linked diseases such as Plavix by Bristol-Meyer Squib, Norvasc, (another Pfizer drug) and Diovan altogether netting 60 billion dollars in the United States alone in 2006.[7,8] What is cause for concern is that the biggest pharmaceutical companies all profit mainly from diseases related to obesity, companies that have a major role in shaping public health policy- which has failed painfully to curb our growing obesity problem. With literally thousands of lobbyists in Washington, DC and an estimated $855 million spent on lobby activities from 1998 to 2006, pharmaceutical companies spend more than any other industry to ensure that their interests are protected. [9] Interests that focus on increasing profits for their shareholders and not on improving overall public health. Many have criticized the pharmaceutical industry on focusing solely on making drugs that profit from current health problems and not ones that solve them.
How The Media Profits From Keeping Us Fat
This impacts women more than lled ‘healthy foods’ universally find that such populations do not suffer the weight problems of developed countries.
Over the past twenty years I have realized that half of the work required to help people lose weight comes teaching them that our very culture is part of the problem. Try to live a healthy lifestyle where you eschew processed foods, exercise and limit or eliminate alcohol from your diet and you immediately become a social pariah. This in itself is a tremendous barrier to overcome when your peers are influenced by many conflicting messages but it is one that must be crossed if you don’t want to help enrich the lives of those that stand to profit from our current health burdens.
Sources
1.       The diet business: Banking on failure. (BBC News World Edition, Feb 5 2003).
2.       World Health Organization
3.       Forbes.com
4.       The American Bariatric Society
5.       Facts On Platsic Surgery- Dustyinfo.com
6.       NIH, NHLBI Obesity Education Initiative. Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults.
7.       Source: MedAdNews 200 – World’s Best-Selling Medicines, MedAdNews, July 2007
8.       Herper, Matthew and Kang, Peter (2006-03-22). “The World’s Ten Best-Selling Drugs”. Forbes.
9.       Center for Public Integrity
10.   The Canadian Women’s Health Network (Body Image and the Media).