70% of dieters refuse the help of doctors

To those on a diet — do you refuse the assistance of your doctor when you’ve gone as far as you can go with your diet plan? According to a new study, 70 percent of Americans who are trying to lose weight are doing so following their own plans — and these folks have no interest in seeking a doctor’s help.

With many doctors saying that there is no way to safely lose more than a pound or two each week through tried-and-tested methods of watching each meal and regular exercise, a third of the survey respondents had tried dietary supplements of unproven benefit — pills and powders that promise to burn fat and boost metabolism. I still don’t get why people think pills can make them lose weight. That’s a much different post, though.

But, this doctor agrees with my thinking, saying “People need to get away from magical thinking … it’s easy to hope for a magic pill that’s going to rev up their metabolism or shed their pounds.” Does that product exist? Outside of some imaginary world in midnight infomercials, most likely not.

Author by Brian White