I should stop posting these rants, but infomercials drive me batshit insane. Scream-at-my-television type mad. Throw-a-hammer-at-the-screen type rage. Especially when this crap geared towards the mentally incapable is shown on The Science Channel.
“Who would pay 158$ for a diet pill?” asks the pretty lady in a buisness suit.
“The terminally stupid!” I yell at the flickering image.
“Not those who need to lose 5 or 10 vanity pounds.” The pretty lady answers. Hey, those two groups are not mutually exclusive, I think to myself.
“These pills are too powerful and expensive for most of you.”
158$ scrolls across my screen. Then the testimonials start.
“It was the best 150 dollars I ever spent!” says one former fat person.
“It was worth every penny!” says another, persuasively holding up a huuuuge pair of pants.
Pretty buisness suit lady comes back, “158$ is a lot to pay for a bottle of pills. That’s how you know these pills will work.”
WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK??? They work because they are expensive? Why, if that’s the way it is, why can’t I go out and get me 10 pounds of Kobe steak and really lose a mess of weight?
I pit you, you retarded informercial, on behalf of all the fat ScienceChannel watchers. Now put The Big Picture back on my TV screen and don’t interupt it 5 times with your asinine pitch!!!
I honestly don’t understand how people get away with this stuff. And it isn’t just the outright lies like the $150 diet pills. There’s the 14-line disclaimer in blurry white that is unreadable even if you freeze the DVR. There’s no ethical difference between fraud of this sort and physical assault — both are means to the same end, to nullify your consent so that you will do something you would not do given the right of meaningful consent.
What’s sad is that so many people are out there looking for a “quick fix” diet that they will actually try this crap. However, I wouldn’t necessarily say those who fall for it are stupid, just desperate. I’m so tired of hearing about the new diet of the week and now everyone’s going overboard with this low carb thing. Whatever happened to that thing called the food pyramid and that stuff called exercise? Works wonders, I tell ya.
I’m not confident in the food pyramid either. There’s been an alarming increase in obesity since its establishment. Pro hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy or government meddling creating unintended consequences? I don’t know, but I do believe that science should be left to the scientists. And government should stop fraud.
This stuff is also called Anorex - do Google searches on the name and see how it’s often referenced as “Anorex (leptoprin)”.
Oh, great. Make an eating disorder that involves a majorly screwed-up body image and great harm being caused to the body through near-starvation the name of a diet pill! That’s a great idea… :rolleyes:
Gah, I forgot to mention aspirin too. I can see the potential for bad drug interactions with this; the aspirin, just for starters, can be bad news when combined with other anti-coagulants like Coumadin, or when taking aspirin is not medically recommended.
I completely agree that’s a terrible name, due to the association with the eating disorder, but to give them benefit of the doubt I suppose it’s possible the drug and the disorder are named after the same root-word, and the drug is not named after the disorder.
That’s true enough, but the mere association should have been enough to send them screaming. I suppose that’s why they’re calling it “leptoprin” these days.
BTW, the recommended 2 pills/day contains 325 mg of aspirin, equivalent to a regular dose aspirin (Bayer brand, for instance). The leptoprin label recommends up to 6 per day. So in other words, they’re saying that dieters should take up to 3 aspirin per day (without consulting with a physician) not to mention a nice big dose of caffeine and ephedrine.
Exxxcellent. This means that the $3.99 I spend for a pint of Ben & Jerry’s is much healthier for me than the $1.99 I could spend on a pint of brussels sprouts.
I HATE informercials like that, and I hate the mind-set they seem to advertise. I also hate Bally Total Fitness’s tape they run all the time. It goes a little something like this:
“Are you one of those people with friends who can eat a ton of food without gaining a pound, but if you so much as look at food you gain weight? Well, don’t worry - it’s not your fault! It’s your metabolism!”
While I do accept that metabolism has a lot to do with weight gain and loss, most infomercials make it sound as though people have no control over their own weight, except the control their products provide. And if you take a pill or drink a shake, all your weight problems will magically dissolve. Yeah, right.
Meh. It ain’t gonna matter anyway come monday. A Federal Judge in NJ has banned the sale of all weight loss products containing ephedra, or so it says HERE.
I myself have taken Xenecal to lose weight and it helped me a lot. But, I sure as HELL wouldn’t buy pills from an INFOMERCIAL. Or well, I wouldn’t take Leptoprin.
Meh, whatever. For some overweight people, drugs WORKED quite well.
I think these new ads are BRILLIANTLY devised, as well as highly unethical. I think there are several different companies using the same tactic here, though I could be wrong…
Anyway, their stroke of brilliance is how they stress early in the pitch “if you’re someone who needs to lose only 10 or 20 pounds, these ARE NOT FOR YOU!” Implying that these pills are so effective that your meager 20 pounds of extra baggage does not justify using such a powerful tool. So of course, the lazy chubsters watching this will suddenly be interested at its prospects; “hey if these things work on the criminally obese, then imagine the wonders it’ll do for me!” I bet they’ve sold tons of these to exactly these people.
There’s also the reassuring money back guarantee. But I bet there’s some loophole here where they don’t have to live up to the promise. Or perhaps some strongarm tactic like “try us for one more month, we promise it’ll work once you give it time to kick in, here, we’ll even send you a free bottle.” Of course, even with a hundred free bottles sent to every dissatisfied customer (and I am positive everyone who orders these will be dissatisfied), they still profit from the initial sale - these are dirt cheap OTC ingredients.
Not to mention that pseudo scientific medical animation describing how your being fat is not your fault at all. How very comforting. And all voiced over by a certified PHD!
Nah, with respect, that’s a cause and effect statement which has no basis in reality. The entire Western World has been showing an alarming increase in obesity for 30 years or more. The reasons are complex, but singularly, the most overwhelming of all is that modern society is less active than ever before, and secondly, the food industry in the Western World is corporatised at a global level.
Because the food industry is a corporatised multi-national industry, it often delves into marketing areas which are “maximum bang for the buck” types of food - that is, foods which are woefully doped with saturated fats to amplify taste, and also are doped with shitloads of sugar to amplify sweetness. The net result is that foods which are high profit items are thrust onto the supermarket shelves of the Western World and invariably, they are the foods which are doped with fats and sugars to the worst degree.
In short, it’s the LACK of government intervention on the corporatised food industry which is allowing the obesity explosion. In my humble opinion of course.
