Cummings, Laura. "The Diet Business: Banking on Failure." BBC News (2003) : n. pag. Web. 25 July
2011.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Could the diet business be hoping for failure?
I just read an article that posed the question of whether the diet business is hoping for failure. I never really thought about this idea, but it makes sense. I will use Jenny Craig as an example, but this idea can be applied to numerous weight loss programs. Once people lose weight on Jenny Craig, if they are able to keep it off forever, they will never need to go back to Jenny Craig again. Which means that Jenny Craig will lose a customer. But, if they lose their desired amount of weight, and gain it back again once they go off Jenny Craig, it is likely that they will choose Jenny Craig again because they know they were were successful on it before. Jenny Craig has gained itself a loyal customer.
It is doubtful that anyone really has the desire to diet for their entire life. But the diet market is a business, that needs a large percent of the population to be dieting in order to succeed. Paula Franklin, a medical practitioner claims, "Dieting is a business with enormous financial interest in making sure it continues" ("The Diet Business: Banking on Failure"). This could be the explanation for the countless amount of diet advertisements that can be found on the television, billboards, or in magazines. The idea to diet could get to anyone, including people who do not need to diet, and even people who it would be unhealthy for them to diet. If these messages get to the wrong people, it could be very harmful to that person, but the only thing that it would do to the diet company is make them more money.
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A few years ago, I saw a news segment on a weight loss company that told their salespeople about potential customers that "If they cry, they buy." They actually trained the salespeople how to ask the customers questions about their weight that would cause them to feel bad about themselves and cry, so that they would then spend more money on the weight loss snack bars. My computer is having issues so I can't send you a link, but if you Google "if they cry, they buy" I think something useful will pop up.
ReplyDeleteCheck out the movie "Thank You for Smoking." There's a scene that's kind of the reverse of this idea you have here: a spokesman for the tobacco industry is on a talk show, and he's defending the industry, saying that they don't WANT people to die from smoking because they're losing customers. This scene is near the beginning of the movie, might be interesting to check out and include in this topic.
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