Friday 16 November 2007

That Frenzy--Is it Worth It?

The Dow Jones recently reported that the most popular weight loss drugs on the market in the U.S. have proven not to provide significant weight loss. I think I speak for most educated individuals when I say, "No, duh!"
The drugs themselves actually do little to accelerate weight loss. Those who have been successful using the pills have been successful mainly because they have had to change their life habits in accordance with the pill's reccommended programme. Most pill manufacturers provide a reccomendation of a certain amount of daily calories plus a regular exercise regimen. Wait, isn't that how doctors reccommend one lose weight--through diet and exercise? I think this little pill has received one too many pats on its brand-stamp.
It's mostly women who have snapped up these products, according to sales and marketing figures. In my opinion, most women who have purchased such products either don't want to do everything it takes to lose weight healthfully or have unrealistic expectations of what their bodies should look like. Usually it's a combination of both.
At the risk of sounding like Meme Roth, the truth is that, every single one of us could potentially find a programme for weight loss that would make us thin if we somehow gained superhuman willpower and spent our whole lives obsessed with our calorie and fat counts, workout schedules, etc. And it is, true, many women make excuses for why they can't lose weight. I know that if I cut my calories to 1600 or less I would lose weight. The truth is, sometimes I'm just not satisfied with that amount. I go to sleep on an angry, growling, empty stomach a lot of the time. Yes, I could shut up and suffer, but would being the ideal size be worth the agony?
Reality steps in all too gracefully at this point. Slightly overweight women like myself face the nastiest world of all in the battle for self acceptance. We are caught between an obesity epidemic screaming at us like an angry American football coach and a feminist movement that says, "Screw that, love your body!" We face little health risks. Our risk is purely emotional or aesthetic, but how do we cope in a world that tells us that, although we are pretty much healthy, we still don't look good enough?

Many women find a solution in that little pill, like that new one, Alli, released earlier this year. It absolutely flew off of the shelves as soon as it came out. I suppose they think it will solve all of their problems. Pop a pill, like the box says, and all of the bad stuff will be absorbed. Sure it does, but what is absorbed has to go somewhere.
All of the fat is expelled in oily, uncontrollable diarrhea. The more fat you eat, the more will leak out of you. Splurge on doughnuts at the office, get doughnut fat coming out of your bum all day long while you work.
I'm fairly certain that if this question was posed to any heterosexual male: Which would you prefer--A) A beautiful, smart girlfriend who was 15 pounds (1.1 stone) overweight, or B) A beautiful, smart girlfriend who was the ideal weight but had oily diarrhea all of the time? --the man would probably pick the former, unless he had some kind of a weird, gross fetish, but I won't get into that one for today.
Only pure evil could have gone ahead with a pill like that. Glaxo Smith-Klein, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures the thing, claims it is a "useful addition" to one's regular weight loss programme, according to the Dow Report. I don't see anything useful about anal leakage, unless a person likes purchasing and wearing disposable diapers, which again is something I will not get into.

What's even more disheartening is women's reaction to the drug and how hurriedly they whisked it off of drug store shelves. Has our culture bogged us down with such self-loathing that we cannot stand to be as we are? Year after year, I see women hating themselves, while a few men, the commercial world, and the media take turns at throwing stones.

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