The focus of Weight Watchers's furor was a Jenny Craig ad campaign that featured spokesperson Valerie Bertinelli announcing a major clinical trial proved Jenny Craig clients lost, on average, twice as much weight as "the largest weight-loss program" (this is code for Weight Watchers).
The clinical study referred to by Bertinelli, compared Weight Watchers research done a decade ago to newly collected Jenny Craig data. Both studies examined weight loss results of people following their program to those who simply dieted on their own.
If Jenny Craig was serious about doing research of any significance they would have designed a study that compared the weight loss outcome of their clients with those of the Weight Watchers's program.
The New York court sided with Weight Watchers and granted them a temporary restraining order forcing Jenny Craig to pull the ads because of misleading weight-loss claims.
Commercial diet programs and products that make false claims rarely get slapped with penalties. The weight-loss industry isn't regulated. We're on our own when it comes to choosing what we hope will be, a safe and effective weight-loss regime.
In a letter to the editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, obesity specialists Dr. Yoni Freedhoff of the University of Ottawa and Dr. Arya Sharma of the University of Alberta, highlighted this issue in February 2009.
"Physicians, governments and public health departments all share medical and moral obligations to protect consumers from shady weight-loss practices. Since weight loss addresses a medical concern for which treatment guidelines exist, weight-loss products and services must be regulated to protect consumer health," wrote Freedhoff and Sharma.
The authors called on the Canadian government to require formal accreditation of commercial weight-loss providers similar to the mandatory accreditation demanded of hospitals and health care facilities.
Freedhoff and Sharma recommended physicians, dietitians, therapists and nurses be taught evidence-based principles of obesity management to ensure they understand, provide and support healthy weight-loss efforts for Canadians.
The authors also urged governments to pass legislation that would give health and drug directorates the power to force weight-loss supplement manufacturers to scientifically prove their health claims to avoid the lure of "weight-loss in a bottle" scams.
Public health campaigns and health care providers are constantly providing messages about the risks associated with obesity. But, at the same time, our government and the medical community aren't doing enough to help consumers identify effective diet approaches and products. Many of us look to programs such as Jenny Craig, or the bottle of fat-burning herbal supplements, when we decide to lose weight. How can we possibly begin to address North America's obesity epidemic without regulation of such diet programs and products?
Next Food Talk: What you should know before joining a commercial weight loss program.
Linda Watts is a registered dietitian. Email questions to lwatts (@) vancourier.com.
