Every day, millions of people spend millions of dollars on weight loss supplements. Most of these claim to grab fat, speed up metabolism, or prevent the body from gaining weight in some other manner. It seems like every day, we see new products coming on the market that promise to do these things for people.

With well over 60% of the adult population of the U. S. overweight, there is a vast market for these products as well.

Most people are concentrating on three points: ease, speed, and personal attractiveness. They want to be able to take a pill or tonic that will lose the weight for them. They also feel that, as one lady put it to me, "If I could just lose the weight, I would look better and feel so much better about myself."

So how do these products stack up? What can they really do for the dieter? That adds a fourth dimension - effectiveness.

EASE:

Okay, I can't find much fault there. Most are pills or liquids that need to be taken once or twice a day. That should satisfy most people's desire for ease.

SPEED:

Now, it starts to get a little sticky. First of all, there are so many products making so many claims about what they will do for so many different people, it is difficult to say if any weight loss supplement really is as fast as it claims it CAN be. Take the most effective weight loss program in the universe, and have several thousand people follow it, and you will get several thousand results. Additionally, what works for one person might not work, or work as well, for her sister or brother.

To make matters worse, how well any weight loss product works will depend to some extent on how it is combined with exercise, nutrition, rest, genetics, and so on.

Second, speed in weight loss just MIGHT NOT be a good thing! As a matter of fact, weight lost TOO QUICKLY can actually endanger health. Just as a point, most weight loss supplements claim to do their work by altering or interfering with the normal processes of the body.

PERSONAL ATTRACTIVENESS:

I may be a bit biased, but when I find someone attractive, it often has as much to do with their outlook on life, and their personal enjoyment of life, as it does with how much their body weighs or how it is shaped. I am personally aware of people who lost large amounts of weight and yet did not improve their "attractiveness" at all. I also know people who are not what society would consider to be physically attractive, and yet they are attractive to those around them.

I know from personal experience that many overweight people feel that if they could just lose the weight their lives would change for the better. On some levels, that sometimes happens, but, if the weight loss comes about through artificial intervention, such as with a pill or through surgical intervention, they often find that their lives have not changed as much as they thought. In some cases, life can be even harder as a direct or indirect result of the method they used to lose weight.