Call for weight-loss industry regulation

EDMONTON, Alberta, Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Two obesity experts in Canada say physicians and public health departments have an obligation to protect consumers from shady weight-loss practices.

Drs. Yoni Freedhoff of the University of Ottawa and Arya Sharma of the University of Alberta said that weight loss should be overseen by licensed and regulated health professionals, the Regina (Saskatchewan) Leader-Post reports.

Sharma adds that a product should raise red flags to consumers if it promises weight loss of 2 or more pounds a week for longer than a month without dieting or exercise or if it claims substantial weight loss with no change in diet.

"The $50 billion North American weight-loss industry comprises a morass of fantastical claims of products and programs promising quick, easy, long-lasting results," the researchers write in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

"Given this wealth of magical weight-loss aids, why is obesity still a problem? Perhaps because magic exists solely within consumers' hopes and dreams, which many commercial weight-loss providers happily exploit."

Any product that says that if you use it for a while, it will cause permanent weight loss is nonsense because that doesn't work even for surgery, Sharma says.

"If I staple your stomach and then unstaple it after 10 years, the weight is going to come back," Sharma says.