This just in - the earth is round

[redman]

From Yahoo!:

Many Weight-Loss Ads Misleading - U.S. Report

Tue Sep 17, 2:32 PM ET

By Lisa Richwine

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many of those claims in weight-loss advertisements that seem far too good to be true really are not, according to a U.S. government report released on Tuesday.

Federal Trade Commission staff analyzed advertising for products and services that promise quick fixes for dropping pounds and found that over half -- about 55 percent -- include at least one claim that was very likely false or lacked adequate proof.

Nearly 40 percent made at least one claim, such as "Eat as much as you want and still lose weight," that was almost certainly false.

Americans spend billions of dollars a year trying to get thin, many with little success. The Surgeon General of the United States estimates that 61 percent of adults in the country are overweight.

FTC Chairman Timothy Muris said consumers were getting ripped off buying products that didn't perform as promised. "The only thing these quick-fix things leave lighter are consumers' wallets," he told a news conference.

The FTC evaluated 300 advertisements from broadcast and cable television, infomercials, radio, magazines, newspapers, supermarket tabloids, direct mail, commercial e-mail and Internet Web sites. The staff also compared 1992 ads from eight national magazines to 2001 ads in the same publications.

In addition to the 55 percent of ads with a claim very likely to be false or lacking substantiation, the report said nearly 40 percent of weight-loss ads made at least one statement that was almost certainly false.

Consumer testimonials and before-and-after photos were common in diet promotions but "rarely portrayed realistic weight loss," the report said.

"False or misleading claims are common in weight-loss advertising, and, based on our comparison of 1992 magazine ads with magazine ads for 2001, the number of products and the amount of advertising, much of it deceptive, appears to have increased dramatically over the last decade," the report said.

Many ads with likely false claims appeared in mainstream magazines such as Family Circle and Cosmopolitan, the report said.

The FTC staff did not evaluate whether specific claims were substantiated, but the report said many of the promised effects clearly were unsupported by scientific evidence.

Claims that are too good to be true include assertions that a user can lose a pound a day or more for extended periods; that substantial weight loss, without surgery, can be achieved without diet or exercise; and that users can lose weight regardless of how much they eat, the report said.

Muris and public health advocates at the news conference said they would urge publishers and other media outlets to screen advertisements but conceded they still had to devise ways to help media outlets distinguish between false and legitimate ads.

Wonder what took them so long? :shootinth