Fantasy Diets

Fantasy Diets vs. Real Diets

"Wanna be sexy?" I hear this phrase as I flip through the channels on a Tuesday afternoon. All I have to do is turn on the TV, and I hear something about some new diet or way to lose weight. There is no doubt that being beautiful means you have to be skinny, right? The media tells us we must be skinny. Whenever I look at a magazine cover, MTV video, or an ad, I see a beautiful, skinny woman promoting the ad or magazine. No wonder we think we need to be skinny. So, after seeing all of these beautiful skinny people everywhere I come across some diet pill commercial. So, I think to myself, "I could be skinny and beautiful too!" Right there the people selling theses diet pills have us hooked. It's a viscous cycle. The media totally promotes being skinny, and then they hit us with all of these different diets and diet pills, on which we will spend our money. Not only can these diets be harmful to our health, but most of the time they don't even work.

Don't we all wish we could just take a pill every day and be skinny? It would take up so little time, and it would take almost no effort. The media is leading us to believe that diet pills are so easy and effortless. Some diet pill commercials that really trick us are the "Trimspa" commercials. "Trimspa" is just another diet pill. Anna Nicole Smith, who has just recently lost 69lbs., promotes this particular pill. The commercials lead us to believe that all she did was take the pills and she lost weight. Unless we are totally clueless, and convinced that this diet pill will work, we all have some idea that it is just not that easy. If it was that easy, there probably wouldn't be such an obesity problem in the United States. Approximately 127 million adults in the U.S. are overweight, 60 million obese, and 9 million severely obese. (American Obesity Association) Not only is being skinny attractive, but being obese can be a serious health problem. If these supposed diet pills do work so well, wouldn't doctors be prescribing them to possibly save some lives? Well, they are not, and the truth is there is no such thing as a pill that can be taken, and with no effort at all lose tons of weight. Like with "Trimspa", supposedly Anna Nicole Smith took the pills and lost 69 lbs. Diet pills are a fantasy, and that is all they are. Unfortunately, if you really want to lose weight, you must work for it. The best thing to do is just eat right and exercise. Eating right and exercising does take some effort, but at least you know it will work.

Along with diet pills being a big hoax, they can pose serious risk to our health. Why risk our health while trying to get healthier? Diet pills, both over-the-counter and prescription, can cause the following: nervousness, insomnia, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure or heart attack, stroke, and change in libido. These are some scary and serious things. Personally I would rather be the way I am, or eat healthy and exercise every day before I would take a risk for a stupid diet pill. The scariest part about these pills is that we are totally unaware of these potential risks we are taking, because the pill bottles don't tell us. The bottle will inform you of some minor side effects, but the bottle says nothing about the major risks. You can get this information, but