Misleading Facts 2 & 3

Today, I’m going to talk about 2 more concepts the weight loss companies don’t want you to know about - “doctor endorsed” and “client testimonials”.

‘Scientifically proven’ or ‘doctor-endorsed’ doesn’t mean it works. Many products claim to be tested at “respected,” “major” or “leading” medical centers or universities. Yet, rarely is the information provided on where the study was conducted, by whom or where it was published to help consumers assess the validity of such claims.

Plus, when a product claims to be “recommended” or “approved” or “discovered” by a health professional, what does that really mean?

“Often there’s no scientific evidence behind Dr. X’s claims,” notes Dr. George Blackburn, a member of the government-sponsored Partnership for Healthy Weight Management and assistant director of nutrition medicine at the Harvard Medical School.

And often the endorsements fail to disclose that the health professional doing the recommending has a financial interest in the product, or that he or she may not have reviewed the scientific evidence. Even if it was reviewed, he or she may not have used acceptable review standards.

And, says Cleland, “The ‘professionals’ can be fictitious.”

Testimonials are not a good indicator of a product’s success either.

Common on television, in print ads and on the Internet are the “before and after” testimonials — personal accounts of success — in support of a product or service, many with before and after photographs.

“Testimonials generally provide little reliable information about what consumers can expect from using the product,” says Cleland, the assistant director of the FTC’s division of advertising practices.

Typically, in the “before” photos, the person appears with poor posture, a neutral facial expression, unkempt hair, unfashionable clothes and washed-out skin tones. The “after” photos generally are better lit. The person stands with shoulders held back, tummy tucked in, wearing smarter-looking clothes and is carefully made up, coiffed and smiling.

More than 10 percent of the testimonials reviewed by the FTC claimed an amount of weight loss that was extremely unlikely — if not impossible. The rest claimed results that occurred in a very small percentage of users, says Cleland.

Adds Dr. Blackburn: “Sometimes companies take healthy people, make them overeat and the “after” picture shown is really what the person looked like before they began overeating.

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