Weight loss supplements: Do they really work?

No

5 of 6

by Natalie Case

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Let me begin by introducing myself. My name is Natalie. I am 39 years old. I am five foot two and I weigh (at last check a week ago) 267 pounds. This puts me firmly in the category of obese. No two ways about it.

I have been, over the course of my 39 years, various sizes and shapes. I have tried diet, exercise, pills, herbs...pretty much everything on the market. I've gone days without eating. I've done the all yogurt diets and the all protein diets. I've paid thousands and thousands of dollars on diet related materials and supplements.

And yet? I'm still fat.

There are a lot of reasons for it. I'm the first to admit that I love food, and I love eating. I really, really do. I like good food, and I'm a decent cook, so I have the capacity to give myself good food.

If diet supplements did what they claimed, I would be 150 pounds. But diet supplements aren't the answer.

The most basic reason? They treat the symptom, not the disease.

The disease is not the size and shape of our bodies. That is a symptom of the disease.

The disease goes much, much deeper than that and it is rooted in the very bowels of our society. There is no magic pill that will treat the disease. Only education and changes in the way our society treats the poor, the food available to our children in our schools, the cost of eating healthy meals and the knowledge of the average American in what healthy eating actually is can possibly treat the disease.

Have you ever attempted to feed a family on minimum wage? I have. It means pasta and rice. It means bread. It means a whole lot of processed foods because that is all that can be afforded on the money budgeted for food.

Have you ever tried to eat a healthy meal at a healthy rate of consumption while in elementary school? My 13 year old neice gets 15 minutes to eat her lunch in school. She eats at a healthy rate, and barely has time to finish a sandwhich and her milk. Everyone around her shovels their food into their mouths so that they can eat enough to get them through the rest of the day.

I'm not trying to excuse myself from responsibility here. I fully accept that I am the way I am because I made me this way. And, I accept that sometimes supplements can give us a support system, when they are used properly and treated as support, not as some magical pill that will melt the fat away.

Losing weight is hard work. It requires healthy eating, and healthy movement. It requires changing how we think about food, modifying our relationship with food as well as how we live. It also requires money. And that money is better spent on fresh vegetables and fish than it is on the latest miracle drug or breakthrough pill or Hollywood secret diet.

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