Use of Drugs for Weight Loss

The Dangers of Fad Diets and Ineffective Solutions 6

There have been numerous fad diets and many best selling books deal with fad diets. Most quickslim crash plans backed by someone claiming to be a diet doctor do not work. Some fad diets are, in fact, potentially dangerous and cause heart palpitations and poor nutrition. However, most fad diets and weight loss programs simply fail to produce permanent weight loss because psychological reorganization is necessary to deal with the psychological conflicts that led to the overeating and to change the person's thinking and behavioral patterns. The major stumbling block leading to the diet failure is that the obese person is "thinking fat" even when he has become thin. The person needs to learn to find fulfillment in something other than eating. For people who live to eat rather than eat to live, eating restrictions and increased exercise may be too much to bear. While some programs have been developed that deal with the psychological and physiological problems that obese people face, many Americans still opt for the quick yet ineffective results that fad diets offer.1

Among the fad diets that began in the mid-1980's is the protein diet. However, much of the liquid protein that is sold is not even an adequate so

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rugs will act to raise metabolic rate, increase heat energy and stimulate breakdown of fat in the adipose cells. The brown fat cells have the unique capacity to oxidize fat into heat rather than molecules such as ATP, which are stored by the body. The problem with the use of drugs to stimulate these processes is that the drugs produce undesirable side effects. For example, many of the weight loss drugs also increase heart rate, a clearly undesirable side effect in the obese person.6 Problems Contributing to Obesity Another reason for failure of fad diets is that they do not take into consideration the complexity of weight loss and obesity. For one thing, diet alone may not be adequate to produce weight loss. Indeed, it has been shown that a combination of diet plus exercise is more effective than diet alone in production of weight loss in the obese person. Another important factor that must be considered even when the diet is sound, is that it is hard to get the obese person to comply with the regime. Education in nutrition and diet may be necessary to achieve compliance. Also, a variety of psychological and behavioral procedures seem a necessary part of the successful diet program. Thus, diet alone may be inadequate.7 C
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Approximate Word count = 1808
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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