Getting Pulled In By The Weight Control Industry

by Max Cotner
(Reno, NV)

I have a question: Why do you think people get so easily pulled in by the weight control industry?

Note from Dr. Dan

Why are people who want to lose weight pulled in so easily by all the scams and lies and nonsense?

There are two parts to this. First, there is what you call the "weight control industry."

The weight control industry isn't really about helping others lose weight. It's about making money.

Only a generation or two ago, when I was growing up in South Dakota, there was still an idea of corporate responsibility.

The public and the corporations had an agreement at that time, and the agreement was that corporations had a responsibility to the public. The idea was that there was something more important than making money -- that being a good citizen and contributing to the welfare of the society was an important goal.

So where is that idea now? In these few years that idea has been almost totally lost. As the level of personal responsibility in society has sunk -- and it has been sinking fast -- the level of corporate responsibility has been sinking as well.

The weight loss industry is part of this degradation. Most companies in this field value profits over everything else.

And the field tends to attract those looking for easy money. Why? Because like sharks, they can smell blood in the water. People who are desperate to lose weight are easy prey.

And that is the other side of the equation. It's hard to defraud the unwilling. But it's easy to defraud someone who is looking for the "easy way."

As the society slips lower down the scale the average person -- like the average corporation -- is less responsible. Responsibility really comes down to finding what is the right thing to do and doing it.

But that takes work and effort. You have to do something. And the harder the work and effort are to face, the less likely it is to get done.

How many people do you know in this day and age that are willing to face life straight on and to do whatever it takes to reach a goal? There aren't that many left with that kind of strength of character.

Imagine a wagon train heading from St. Louis to Oregon in the 1800s. The trail was tough and they had to get through before winter or they would be trapped and they'd freeze. Those were some tough people.

If you were too slow, or too tired, or too weak or too unwilling what would happen? You'd get left behind. They couldn't risk the lives of 200 people for one or two that weren't willing to put our the effort.

But that has been lost. Right now if you want to lie in bed and eat whole chickens and loaves of bread you can probably find somebody to enable you to do that.

And if you get too sick to engorge yourself any further, why then the paramedics will be called, they'll cut a hole in the wall large enough to get you out, they'll load you into an ambulance with reinforced springs designed to carry "bariatric patients", they'll transport you to a hospital that has lifts in the ceiling that will hold 1000 pounds and you'll be lifted into a hospital bed where you can demand to be fed and where your family can gather around and wail, "He's hungry..."

This, sadly enough, is not a joke. This is played out daily across our land of abundance here in the United States.

Of course not everyone is this extreme. It is just an example of what can happen.

But the reason that people are so easily swayed and can be taken advantage of so easily by the weight loss industry has roots in the same place -- the lack of personal responsibility.

When someone has the determination and drive to do what it takes to get their weight to a reasonable level -- to a level where they can do normal human activities and where they don't suffer medically -- then they can't be taken advantage of. Because those people are able to see the truth and are willing to do what needs to be done, even if it is difficult.

But for the rest, they can be taken advantage of by the next swindler with the instant-effort-free flab reducer or the miracle-no-hunger diet.

Dr. Dan