Crack Down

7 Pages 1760 Words

“Crack” Down
Americans like looking for the easy way out or a quick fix. A performance enhancer or weight loss supplement can offer this. Most companies know this and advertise dramatic weight loss or improved performance in a bottle. Along with the advertisement there is a picture of a person who was overweight and out of shape and thirty days later the same person is muscular and lean. Such result is unlikely for the normal 9 to 5 person, with a family or who is attending school. With the mind set that people need to lose weight, even if it is a measly five pounds, people want to lose weight as fast as they can. With this, there are to many miracle weight loss supplements advertising dramatic weight loss results. However in many of these advertisements they forget to mention the harmful side affects to the body.
On television or in a magazine they are everywhere, those infomercials or 3 page advertisements claming their product can change a person’s life in a months time. These products claim to be all natural and to be used as a dietary supplement. But what does dietary supplement mean. One would think that this would be a pill for a meal replacement or a supplement that aids the diet into losing weight. Not so, the Dietary Supplement Health an Education Act of 1994 defines it as “any product except tobacco, that contains at least a vitamin, mineral, an herb or amino acid”. This act also limited the power of the FDA by not allowing them to test these supplements as long as the products contained one of the aforementioned. This makes it very easy for the manufacturers to put out a product and sell it.
Consumers tend to think that the FDA regulates dietary supplements and these products are safe and effective. Consumers would also expect these products to be truthfully advertised; this could not be further from the truth. As stated in an article by Stephen Barret, M.D., these products are exempt from being...