REWIND: Weight loss gimmicks change, but truth stays the same

DALLAS — ‘Tis the season for peppermint, gingerbread, eggnog and all the different vacation delights that make New Year weight loss resolutions so common. 

There will little question be a run on gymnasium memberships together with some catchy advertising of eating regimen plans, fad exercises and dietary supplements promising to whisk that fats away fast. 

But historical past exhibits although the gimmicks could change, the chilly exhausting truth stays the same.

A 1974 WFAA story archived in the SMU Jones Film Collection particulars how a slew of weight loss clinics have been popping up in Dallas after which instantly disappearing. It even caught the consideration of the Texas Attorney General, who needed to verify customers weren’t getting duped.  

“We are concerned with the business end of it at this point. Making sure the consumer receives what he is being guaranteed,” the Texas Attorney General mentioned. 

Among the marketed guarantees in 1974: a eating regimen to drop pounds in simply three days, a contraption permitting you to “pedal” the fats away and even having the ability to drop pounds by taking a shower. 

But as one physician interviewed for the story put it: whether it is too good to be true, it most likely is. 

“We gain weight and look for an instant cure. Then we are prone to fall for all the gimmicks in our society,” the physician mentioned. 

One of the newest and never so biggest fads was the use of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, a hormone synthesized type the urine of pregnant girls. Some clinics claimed injections of HGC when mixed with a low-calorie eating regimen might promote weight loss.  

However, that declare, like many different weight loss guarantees in historical past, was deceptive in response to the physician interviewed for the story. 

“The agent that caused the patient to lose weight was not HCG but the 500 calories diet,” the physician mentioned.