The rise of Diet Pills & the Obesity Epidemic
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
Do we need far to know the reason for our obese multitude. It was coming and it was ignored - because like everything, there is a solution and most of the time the solutions are devised by big corporations.
A Time Magazine cover story from November 2, 1981 noted that, on any given day, an estimated 70 million Americans would engage in some form of exercise. At the time, that was nearly half of the adult population.
The change in just two decades is hard to swallow.
- A 2002 study by the National Center for Health Statistics found that seven out of 10 American adults did not exercise regularly.
- In addition, a February 5, 2007 BusinessWeek article estimated that McDonald’s alone serves 27 million people on any given day.
- These numbers shed light on the some of the causes of the obesity epidemic and may also reveal why diet drugs have come to even greater prominence over time.
Yet it’s not just the obesity epidemic that has been a boon for diet drug companies. Even people looking to lose a few excess pounds have been turning to diet pills.
- A 2001 survey conducted by the University of Michigan estimated that 24 percent of teenage girls turn to diet pills to help them lose weight.
- A more scientific five-year study conducted by the University of Minnesota was published in 2006.
- The study found that 20 percent of girls had used diet pills to lose weight by ages 19 to 20. It also noted that the diet pills did not work and that girls who had used diet pills were more likely to be overweight by the end of the study.
