Why You Should Read a Weight Loss Consumer Report

The development of the weight loss industry has led to the growth of scores of weight loss supplements and programs each claiming to be the best thing to ever come out in the weight loss industry. While these weight loss products are not necessarily lying, some may also be guilty of not telling you the whole truth. So that's where a weight loss product consumer report comes in. A weight loss product consumer report works by providing information on weight loss products that are made available to the public. With the general aim of weeding out the lies from the truths in the weight loss industry, a weight loss product consumer report is used to protect unknowing weight loss product consumers from falling prey to dishonest weight loss product manufacturers.

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Choosing weight loss products

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Choosing a weight loss product to use can be very tricky. It's not even just because of the sheer amount of products available to you but more so the amount of information that each one is feeding you. So be careful before you buy a weight loss product. It is not enough that you compare products based on what's popular although that would give you an idea on which one works. To guide you, start out by looking up the list of ingredients of a weight loss product. Then look up a list of ingredients that according to the Food and Drug Administration are harmful for consumption. Just by the list of ingredients alone you will find out if you should be taking a particular weight loss product or not.

Prescriptions: yes, no, maybe

Prescription drugs are generally of higher potencies compared to over-the-counter products. Weight loss products that come with prescriptions are normally given to very obese patients or if a person has a particular weight loss need that cannot be addressed with simple over-the-counter weight loss products. Because of their highly specific content, prescription weight loss products are approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Degree of effectiveness depend from one person to another but most who take prescription weight loss products lose about 5% to 10% from their weight. While usually given to very obese patients, prescription weight loss products may be given to people who have healthy body mass indexes considering that they have consulted with their doctors and have been cleared to take them.

Go over-the-counter

A lot of weight loss products are available to you over the counter. (Over-the-counter weight loss products mean that you don't need a prescription to take them.) However, a weight loss product consumer report will tell you that buying weight loss products over-the-counter actually poses more threats than buying with a prescription because use is not regulated. Any person can buy as much as they want, in as many brands as they want without regard to what would work best for them. Essentially a trial-and-error process, the threat also lies in using too many weight loss products at the same time. While all claiming to promote weight loss, weight loss products aren't generally intended to be used in conjunction with another weight loss product. Well, because each one is claiming to handle singlehandedly all your weight loss needs, they aren't formulated to be "friendly" to other weight loss products. Using too many weight loss products at the same time can actually make you sicker instead of better. By piling on different substances into your body, you may be overloading your body systems in the process. This makes your body slow down and weaker in defending you against threats in the environment.

Unproven claims

Be careful of weight loss products labeled as "herbal" or "natural" as these can be misleading. Just because they are labeled as such, that does not guarantee that they are indeed safe for consumption. Not everything herbal or natural is safe for you. Some might even be potentially dangerous especially to those who are suffering from any health condition or are already taking prescription medication.

Protect yourself

As any weight loss product consumer report would, you have to learn how to protect yourself. When buying any weight loss product, check to see if a weight loss consumer product report has been done on it. This will tell you how it worked for other people, what does it do, and what does it contain--some of the very basic things you have to know about any weight loss product. Unless approved by the Food and Drug Administration, be cautious about products that contain the words: breakthrough, easy, magical, new discovery, guaranteed, effortless, exotic, secret, miraculous, and mysterious. If you've taken the time to find out what works, take the time to tell other people what works. Create your own weight loss product consumer report and help ensure that other people are informed and protected as well.

Why You Should Read a Weight Loss Consumer Report

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Should You Trust Consumer Reports to Tell You About the Best Weight Loss Program?

You probably like to go on the Consumer Reports website before buying an appliance or car. Have you ever been there to look up the best weight-loss program on the market? In most people's minds, weight-loss programs don't really lend themselves to that kind of quantification. The way these programs are advertised and the way to go about their business, it just never occurs to people that these programs could lend themselves to rigorous scientific testing. Nevertheless, it certainly seems to have occurred to Consumer Reports; for they've done a shoot out of all the different weight-loss brands there are, and they've declared a winner. Among all the different commercial plans there are out there, Jenny Craig, Atkins, Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers, Zone and Slim Fast, Jenny Craig has been declared the winner.

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So should everyone drop everything else and just go with what Consumer Reports has declared to be the best weight-loss program on Earth? Well, have you ever seen those car advertisements where they declare great mileage figures in bold and then quietly, in fine print, say that your mileage may vary because to get those great figures they've advertised, you need their standard test conditions? Well, there's something of the same kind of uncertainty that goes along with the claim by Consumer Reports.

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To begin with, Consumer Reports never tested any of these weight-loss programs on their own. Instead, they looked at scientific studies done by various people and various authorities. The Jenny Craig study for instance, was something that was published in the JAMA medical periodical. They tested hundreds of overweight people in this study, while they gave them free enrollment to the Jenny Craig program and signed them up for thousands of dollars worth of Jenny Craig's food to make sure that they stuck with the program.

Well, if you give people free food that's prepared and packaged and ask them to stick to that, of course they love to do that. People like saving on food expenses whenever they can and they love to not have to cook. In the real world, if you were to sign up for Jenny Craig and her approved food yourself, you would have to pay 0 every week for the food. And oh, no one pays you a stipend when you sign up to Jenny Craig on your own coin the way they do with those medical studies.

If you wish to learn about whether Jenny Craig is the best weight-loss program out there, how about looking at another study, this one done by the Cooper Institute in Texas. The Cooper Institute didn't pay people to participate - or give them free food. They just tracked tens of thousands of people who had signed up to Jenny Craig. They found that only 7% of hopeful slimmers stayed with the program after a year.

The moral of the story is, that just because Consumer Reports can be great with consumer appliances and services doesn't mean they have to be good with medical stuff.

Should You Trust Consumer Reports to Tell You About the Best Weight Loss Program?

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