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American society stays pill-happy with a seemingly cure-all weight loss trend.

-How much dough to lose the dough?-

According to the World Health Organization (http://www.who.int/en/), Americans spent $13 billion worth of Lipitor alone last year. Additionally, direct healthcare costs of obesity-related conditions may reach up to 40% of the U.S. $700 billion annual healthcare budget by the end of this year.

Wired Magazine (2006) projected that within a few years, more than half the revenue of the entire pharmaceutical industry will come from weight-loss drugs made specifically for Metabolic Syndrome.

How's that for a capitalist incentive?

-Getting our money's worth-

Even if weight-loss prescription supplements and drugs produce a slimming effect, we still run the danger of ignoring personal responsibility.

The label "Metabolic Syndrome" allows us to neglect our health because it's infinitely easier to accept that you have some disease and can just get a prescription to fix it than it is to realize that your lifestyle is unhealthy and needs to change.

But can this miracle-pill rhetoric really convince society that simply eating less and exercising regularly don't work on their own? Such a small percentage of obesity is actually attributed to non-food/exercise related issues that a cure-all pill only further deflects the incentive for a healthy lifestyle.

Weight loss supplements don't move toward a society of wholesome, thinner people; they thrive off of already-overweight people who are willing to pay money to continue health choices they made in the first place, all the while remaining guilt-free.

-A Big Mac a day makes the miracle pill' stay-

Weight loss supplements and drugs only address symptoms, meaning a prescription is for life.

Keywords: for life.

No one likes hearing they need to lose weight. Most aren't even conditioned to take criticism well, and criticism oftentimes fails to be the constructive kind. Re-framing obesity and related weight issues as a disease was a genius idea for prolonging denial and personal responsibility.

But in the end, no amount of drugs can "cure" obesity and related symptoms. Sloughing off some pounds with a few doses of Lipitor a day won't psychologically call for a lifestyle change. It calls for regular prescription fills at your local Walgreen's.

With 75 million Americans and counting, pharmaceutical companies have lifelong customers in the bag. And the bag is getting bigger every day. Quite metaphorically, wouldn't you say?

-Where we go

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