by Blanca Rosa

Created on: June 21, 2007

I do not think that prescription diet pills should be banned as they are being prescribed and monitored by a medical professional. Typically for said medications to even be considered it is as a last resort when normal diet and exercise have failed or have shown little to no progress. These diet pills are not prescribed typically to an individual that may only have 20 or 30 pounds to lose as that is not life threatening as it can be for the morbidly obese that do get prescribed diet pills in an attempt to not have to resort to surgery.

Over the counter pills can help some people that may only have 10 pounds to lose or for some they do nothing at all. They are merely an aid in a struggle that the majority of the population faces on a daily basis; however, they should be combined with diet and exercise to have the optimum effect if they are to work at all.

As a person ages their metabolism slows down therefore it becomes harder for a person to lose weight like they once may have been able to do. Why should they not be able to add an additional aid to their diet plan when following it correctly? It is not necessarily a quick fix especially if the person is only looking to lose a minimal amount of weight to begin with. Clearly they have been able to maintain a healthy lifestyle and weight all along and perhaps circumstances have arose in life such as pregnancy or aging that have caused the weight to become harder to shed. Maybe a new medication caused a sudden increase in weight. These are a few circumstances that are out of a person's control so why not allow them to possible use a diet aid to shed a few extra pounds if they aren't harming themselves by doing so.

Granted diet pills can be habit forming but so can't anything else. Nasal sprays are habit forming yet we don't ban those. There are individuals addicted to cough syrup yet again we don't ban those. Why? Well, because as with anything they do have pros that benefit a great deal of people. Why should everyone have to suffer because some have an addictive personality which is all mental and has nothing to do with the product at hand? We shouldn't. As with anything there are pros and cons and I firmly believe the pros out weigh (no pun intended) the cons as far as diet pills go which is why we should not ban them.

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