Kirstie Alley, Oprah, and Friends: Who’s Getting Fooled by the Weight Loss Industry?

Kirstie Alley made an appearance on Oprah’s show and I couldn’t help but find out more about it. In fact Yahoo! had a front page story on her Oprah appearance and the new article in People magazine. If you didn’t get to watch or read the story, here are some links:

http://www.oprah.com/article/health/weightloss/20090417-tows-kirstie-alley-weight

http://omg.yahoo.com/news/kirstie-alley-yes-i-gained-83-pounds/22171?nc

If you don’t know, Kirstie Alley was the spokesperson for Jenny Craig for over three years. During that time, she lost an amazing 75 pounds and sported her smaller body during an Oprah’s show in 2006. However, when Jenny Craig decided to drop her as their spokesperson, she put all of the exercise equipment she used into storage and then begin to eat the same ol’ low density, high caloric foods she used to eat. Inactivity and excessive food-spurging caused her to regain over 80 pounds! 

I have some questions to ask you, Kirstie, and Jenny Craig.

1. If Kristie Alley wanted to lose weight and keep it off, would losing 75 lbs and then regaining 80 lbs., considered successful weight loss?
2. Does Kristie, Oprah, and Jenny Craig know that calorie restrictive diets ultimately cause muscle loss, which slows down metabolism?  Maybe a better question is, do they care?
3. On Jenny Craig’s website, they do mention that exercise is a part of a healthy way to lose weight. However 98% of their website’s main emphasis is their products that consumers can buy.
4. When viewing Jenny Craig’s website, which exercises are best to do in order lose weight and keep it off? 
5. Does Kirstie and Jenny Craig not know that all exercise is not created equal? 
6. Why would you trust a company that was been sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for fradualent claims of weight loss? My mentor, Phil Kaplan, compiled a list back in 1997 of companies that have been fined by the FTC. See it here: http://www.philkaplan.com/thefitnesstruth/ftc.htm.  Go ahead and see some other familiar names there as well.

Of course, most of these questions I give do not need an answer. It is pretty obvious that Jenny Craig was, is, and probably always will be a multi-million dollar fad diet that does “business as usual” with 10s of millions made each year. When the FTC does catch up with them, it will be a slap on the wrist compared to the amount of money they made overall.

Let’s all hope that Oprah sat down with Kirstie after the show to give her Bob Greene’s business card =)

Be Better,

Dexter