Category: Weight loss and diets

1. Lighter Life is dangerous they don't care about your health

   Posted on 8:40am Wednesday 3rd Dec 2014

   News about LIghter Life diets emerges today about Coronation Street star Denise Welch and an advert for the company that has been banned by the ASA.

   Frankly the Lighter Life company don't seem to be bothered. In fact Denise Welch talks about her weight loss and defends the advert despite the fact it is encouraging you to lose weight in a very unhealthy way indeed...

   A report in The Guardian explained:

   An advert for the weight loss programme LighterLife featuring former Coronation Street and Loose Women star Denise Welch has been banned after the actor lost weight more quickly than regulations deem to be safe.

   Welch attacked the ruling, saying weight loss companies were “trying to help people, and yet they aren’t even allowed to tell us what they can do for us”.

   The social media page featured before and after images of the actor and said: “Denise lost two stone in just two months.”

   Responding to a complaint challenging whether the ad complied with rules on weight-loss advertising, LighterLife described Welch as overweight with a “very high” waist circumference when she began her programme, adding that she was at high risk of health problems.

   The company said Welch lost more than 2lb (around 90g) a week while on the programme.

   But it said that Welch’s rate of weight loss was in line with expected results for those on a very low calorie diet (VLCD) programme and, while the rate was greater than 2lb a week, this did not mean that it was incompatible with good medical and nutritional practice.

   The company said National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) guidelines stated that a diet of less than 600kcal a day should be used only under clinical supervision, but the minimum daily intake for those on a VLCD LighterLife programme was greater than 600 kcal and those who required medical supervision received it, in line with company policy.

   The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) noted that the Committee of Advertising Practice code stated that claims for an individual to have lost an exact amount of weight must be compatible with good medical and nutritional practice.

   The ASA said: “We understood that Denise Welch had been classed as overweight when her weight loss programme began and also that her waist circumference was very high, which put her at high risk of health problems.

   Are you aware that many celebrities who have DVDs for weight loss or work for diet companies EAT and Put on Weight first ?!

   It's just shocking that people buy into products such as this. Losing weight in this way doesn't work in the long term. You put it all back on and statistics show that you often put more on than you started with. The thing is that people say how great it is that they are losing weight as if it is a surprise. You are taking in only 600 calories a day! of course you are losing weight and damaging your health for nothing at all. I work with people helping them to lose weight and if they come to me on any of these low calorie diets then I explain that I can't work with them because if you just want to lose the weight you put on over years in a few weeks then you are looking at it the wrong way. Although I am a Clinical Hypnotherapist I am not doing anything incredible when I work on weight loss...just helping people to eat more healthily, end emotional eating and exercise more. That's it.

   You may need help to motivate you to do those things but if you do them you will lose weight...over the long term...and keep it off. Please don't be suckered into giving the diet industry more money. They wouldn't have a good business if it worked because you would only ever go on one diet in your life wouldn't you?!

2. NHS says feed your Baby Kit Kats and crisps then watch it get fat

   Posted on 3:29pm Sunday 30th Nov 2014

   

   In one of the most shocking leaflet handouts seen for a long time the NHS in Poole, Dorset are advising new mothers to feed their babies, crisps, kit kats, milky ways and other junk food to solve feeding problems with no regard at all for the future of what will clearly be fat babies, fat children and then fat teenagers and adults.
   

   Flyers handed to new parents by Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust recommended feeding chocolate, crisps, fried foods and sugary sweets to children over the age of eight months. The guidance is aimed to help children with ‘problems managing lumpy foods’. Rather than come up with a healthy fresh alternative for parents having problems they take the easy, lazy way out that can only lead to obesity and diabetes in later life.

   It's an appalling and ill thought out idea. The foods on the list that they recommend include: Quavers, Skips and Wotsits, chocolate bars such as Kit Kats and Crunchies are also recommended ‘if a child sucks food well’. Because giving babies chocolate full of sugar is clearly a good idea to some within the NHS.

   Of course this isn't all of the NHS just one trust who clearly have no idea how to help people be good parents. Take yourself off to another NHS website and you are given this much better advice..

   ‘Do not give them [babies] foods or drinks with added sugar, or salty or fatty food, as this will make them more likely to want them as they get older.’

   That is clearly common sense and perhaps some people do need to be told that so why on earth are they handing out these leaflets in Poole?

   The leaflets have been defended by Tracey Nutting, Poole Hospital’s director of nursing, who said that it was the ‘first of several documents given to a small number of parents with babies and toddlers who have significant feeding problems and are failing to progress onto solid food for a variety of medical or developmental reasons’.

   It seems indefensible. A leaflet shouldn't be given to anyone with this advice. In fact if it is a small number of parents then there is even less reason to have a leaflet and even more reason to have a sensible conversation and some good healthy eating advice.

   My only hope is that this story sheds light on those who are not looking out for you but just for a quick fix. Frankly Tracey Nutting should be ashamed and not trying to defend this story and leaflet. It's time she took a long hard look at this shocking idea and it was withdrawn alongside an apology and some good dietary advice.