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# Wacko world of weight loss
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/wacko-world-of-weight-loss/
- Published: 2007-06-21T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:17:07.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By SETH BARNES barnes-*

I THINK WE’VE REACHED A BREAKING point in the annals of dieting. The travails of people trying to lose weight in this country are well documented. In fact, if you stack dieters up against the chronically obese, some intriguing contrasts emerge.

First of all, most dieters are women. They’re always looking to shed pounds with some new-fangled method, pill, theory of food intake or workout regimen. The chronically obese demographic, alas, consists of men, women, children, hermaphrodites, grandma, Uncle Ralph, and if you’re not careful with your dinner scraps, the family dog. The most noticeable contrast between dieters and the obese is that, generally, dieters don’t necessarily need to lose the weight. Sure, they might look ever-so-slightly better in that new black cocktail dress if they shed five more pounds, but compared to the fellow with a standing reservation in the window booth at Carl’s Jr., their weight problems are mostly a byproduct of their insecurities and the expectations of our society at large.

If you’re uncomfortable with my sweeping generalization, take a look at the advertising campaign for the new weight-loss drug “Alli.” Alli is the first over-the-counter FDA-approved diet drug to be sold without a prescription. Print ads for the wonder drug can be found in female-friendly publications like Real Simple and a TV spot depicts two women dropping by the drug store after a power walk to pick up a dose.

Alli works by blocking absorption of up to 25 percent of fat intake. The manufacturers at GlaxoSmithKline claim that you can anticipate 50 percent more weight loss compared to dieting alone, so one could expect to lose 15 pounds instead of 10 pounds on the regiment (these figures were pulled directly from some advertising material I came across, so notice that they don’t claim that Bruno Big Burger could lose 150 pounds instead of the 100 pounds he’s gunning for in order to stave off heart disease).

And there are, to say the least, some very catastrophic side-effects that every potential customer will want to keep in mind.

You see, the idea behind Alli is that the dieter has to take responsibility for their own weight loss by exercising, eating right, and tracking their progress. Because Alli blocks fat absorption, if the dieter eats too much fat they can expect “loose or more frequent stools, an urgent need to go to the bathroom or gas with an oily discharge.”

Now, this is a family newspaper, and just as there are certain topics that make for inappropriate discussion at the dinner table, there are certain notions that probably shouldn’t be fully explored in print. But I can’t resist passing on the additional information that Alli provides on these “treatment effects” on the company Web site: “It’s probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work.”

It sounds to me like it might be a smart idea to wear a raincoat and not leave the house for a few weeks if you’re taking Alli, lest you accidentally eat a plate of french fries or a bowl of ice cream.

It’s ironic that GlaxoSmithKline pitches Alli as an empowering agent for change, because sticking to the program requires personal discipline. We won’t stop stuffing faces on our own, we won’t exercise on our own initiative, we won’t eat in moderation, but if we take a drug that literally makes us severely and desperately ill after eating fat, perhaps the unpleasant experience will make us shape up. In a lot of ways, Alli is a cousin of Antabuse, the prescription medication given to some alcoholics that makes them sick after even a sip of booze.

I wouldn’t say anyone taking either of these drugs is empowered. I’d call them addicted — to alcohol, to an obsession with food, to a skewed perspective of what qualifies as healthy and natural. Somebody who saddles themselves with a guaranteed intestinal apocalypse if they consume fat in any form is hardly a balanced individual.

Pass the french fries.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 21, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/062107.pdf?ref=smdp.com)