On The Whole

Warning: Predatory practices in print magazine subscriptions - Yoga Journal & Family Handyman

FYI: Checking my bank account online this week, I saw $74 in deductions for unauthorized renewals for 2 print magazines (Yoga Journal and Family Handyman) that I had subscribed to a year or so ago via special promotion offers. I had to spend a half hour calling my bank to get the phone numbers associated with the charges and then navigating an automated menu to get the subscriptions cancelled. (I'm assuming the unauthorized charges will be refunded -- I couldn't get clarity on that from the cheery recorded voice -- or else I will have to call again.)

I had initially subscribed to these and some other print magazines via a special offer using frequent flyer miles that were about to expire. If I remember correctly, I was given the "opportunity" to subscribe to Yoga Journal and Family Handyman for $2 each during that transaction, which necessitated my giving the subscription service my debit card number. That must have been how they "renewed" the subscriptions without my permission, charging me full price.

I've been too busy to read most of the print magazines I'd subscribed to then, so wouldn't have renewed them even at the ridiculously low special-promotion price. Slipping full-price renewal charges onto a debit/credit card without permission ticks me off. I consider it a predatory and unethical (if not outright illegal) business practice. I was not notified in advance of the charges (that I recall -- if I got anything in the mail it was tossed) or given any way to cancel the renewed subscriptions and obtain refunds. I had to call my bank to get the phone number associated with the charges.

So, be forewarned: If you take advantage of special pricing offers for magazines, especially through some kind of subscription service rather than directly from the magazine(s), you risk having your credit or debit card automatically charged for an unauthorized full-price renewal at the end of the initial subscription period. My recommendation: Don't do it.

Print magazines are an endangered species these days, which saddens me. Although I read a lot in digital/online format, I still enjoy browsing a print magazine sometimes and will still subscribe to some print publications. But I will never again subscribe via a service due to the risk of its using a credit  or debit card number to bill unauthorized future renewals.

I don't know the name of the subscription service I dealt with, by the way. If I have the time and inclination at some point I may file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and give them the phone number associated with the charges so they can, if they wish, track down and address the culprit. But I've spent enough time on this today.

And yes, by putting the magazine titles in the subject of this post I'm hoping staffers at Yoga Journal and Family Handyman are alerted to the problem and rethink their use of predatory subscription services.

The Slim Chance Awards -- Worst Diet Schemes of 2012

Dr. Oz weighs in with Worst Claim

HETTINGER, ND, Dec 28—The promotion of a dubious “miracle” diet aid by Dr. Oz and the risky concoctions endorsed by television personality Kim Kardashian for weight loss were recognized today among the worst diets and diet promotions of 2012 as the Healthy Weight Network released its list of “winners” in four categories for the 24^thAnnual Slim Chance Awards.

 “Celebrity endorsements of discredited and unproven weight loss schemes were prominent contributors to the growing U.S. weight loss market, which was projected to rake in $65 billion in 2012,” said William M. London, a professor of public health at California State University, Los Angeles and co-author of the college textbook Consumer Health: A Guide to Intelligent Decisions.

“As in previous years, we noted numerous ineffective and unsafe products and gimmicks repackaged as phony breakthroughs,” said Francie M. Berg, a licensed nutritionist and adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine, who has chaired the review of Slim Chance nominees since 1989. “Quick-fix quackery continues to distract weight-conscious consumers from a sound focus on healthy lifestyles.”

WORST CLAIM: Dr Oz

In the category of Worst Claim, the Slim Chance Award goes to Dr. Mehmet Oz, who touted raspberry ketone on The Dr. Oz Show as “the number one miracle in a bottle to burn your fat.” Dr. Oz claimed the product regulates the hormone adiponectin so fat in cells is “broken up” more effectively to enable “fat burning.” He declared that the product will help teach the body that it’s thin. But the only relevant research cited by The Dr. Oz Show was conducted on lab rats and mammalian cell cultures rather than clinical research on people.

By the end of the show’s program segment on raspberry ketone Dr. Oz shifted into disclaimer mode, arguing for the need for good diet and exercise. He then contradicted his opening miracle mongering by suggesting raspberry ketone will only “get you over the hump” and “is not a miracle pill.” His disclaimers have not stopped numerous Internet marketers from using his name and image to promote sales of raspberry ketone products for weight loss.

WORST PRODUCT: QuickTrim

QuickTrim formulas include various chemical cocktails offered in caplets, drinks, drink mixes, and even skin gel—deceptively claimed to "detoxify and clean" the body and “burn” calories. Potentially hazardous ingredients in featured QuickTrim products include stimulant laxatives and unspecified amounts of caffeine.

A $5 million class action lawsuit against Windmill Health Products; QuickTrim; Amazon.com; Walmart and others has alleged 28 different misrepresentations made for QuickTrim products. Co-defendants include Kim Kardashian along with her sisters Khloe and Kourtney, who have offered testimonials for QuickTrim and appeared in promotional materials for QuickTrim.

WORST GIMMICK: Ab Circle Pro

Ab Circle Pro earned the award for Worst Gimmick with ads falsely claiming that three minutes working out with the device—a fiberglass disk with stationary handlebars and two knee rests that roll on the edge of the disk, allowing consumers to kneel and rotate side-to-side—is equivalent to 100 sit-ups and can “melt inches and pounds,” causing the exerciser to lose ten pounds in two weeks.

In August, marketers of Ab Circle Pro agreed to settlements with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for consumer refunds of between $15 million and $25 million. Defendants are to refrain from making false or unsupported claims in the future. They include Fitness Brands, Fitness Brands International, and the two individuals who control them, Michael Casey and David Brodess; Direct Holdings Americas, and Direct Entertainment Media Group; infomercial producer Tara Borakos, Tara Productions and New U; and Jennifer Nicole Lee and her two companies, JNL, and JNL Worldwide.

MOST OUTRAGEOUS: Fake news acai berry scammers

Dishonored in the Slim Chance category of Most Outrageous are acai berry and “colon cleanser” advertising scammers who falsely claimed that products such as Acai Pure, Acai Max, Pure Berry Max, Slimberry, Acai Ultraberry Slim, and Acai Advanced Cleanse would cause rapid and substantial weight loss. Various advertisers ran afoul of the FTC, leading to multi-million dollar settlements that barred the advertisers from various deceptive practices. Outrageous advertising included:

• Fake news websites using names and logos of major broadcast and cable networks offering deceptive reports with titles such as “Acai Berry Diet Exposed: Miracle Diet or Scam?” and “1 Trick of a Tiny Belly:  Reporter Loses her ‘Belly’ using 1 Easy Tip.”
• Supposedly free trial offers for acai berry products that deceptively enroll people into long-term contracts with monthly credit card billings for products consumers didn’t request.

Acai berry product marketers who settled FTC charges in 2012 include: Coleadium affiliate network and its owner, Jason Akatiff; Clickbooth affiliate network (owned by John Daniel Lamp); Intermark Communications doing business as Copeac; Coulomb Media and Cody Low (also known as Joe Brooks); Circa Direct and Andrew Davidson; Ricardo Jose Lampra; Zachary S. Graham, Ambervine Marketing and Encastle; Tanner Garrett Vaughn; Thou Lee; Charles Dunlevy; DLXM and Michael Volozin.

The Slim Chance Awards are sponsored by Healthy Weight Network. They are a lead-up to “Rid the World of Fad Diets and Gimmicks Day” during Healthy Weight Week, the third week in January ( www.healthyweight.net/hww.htm ).

For more information and to review 24 years of weight loss quackery see http://www.healthyweight.net/fraud.htm

Love Your Body Detroit plans Bodyslam! fundraiser

The organizers of the Feb. 19, 2011 Bodyslam! Poetry Jam & Storytelling event promise a fundraiser "that will make you think critically about your body."

They're looking for stories or poetry "that talks about all forms of body oppression." The Love Your Body Detroit fundraiser will also feature art from The Vagina Show & body-positive crafters & artists.

The event will be held 6-9 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 19 at The Trumbullplex in Detroit, MI (4210 Trumbull St.) . There's a $5 minimum donation, $10 suggested.

They're still looking for participants, so submit your relevant poetry & stories via email at LYBDetroit @ gmail.com.

Join the New Year's Revolution!

#HAES

On January 1 and throughout the month of January, activists are flooding popular social media with Health At Every Size (HAES) friendly messages in lieu of the same old weight loss/dieting messages.

HAES is a weight-neutral approach to health and well-being that focuses on behaviors and attitudes rather than body size, transcending problems in the  weight-centered health paradigm. Focusing on weight and body size rather than directly on health encourages eating disorders and other dangerous weight-loss practices (including yo-yo weight loss and regain cycles) and reinforces discrimination against fat men, women and children.

The Basic Principles of Health At Every Size as promoted by the Association for Size Diversity & Health are:

1. Accepting and respecting the diversity of body shapes and sizes.

2. Recognizing that health and well-being are mult-dimensional and that they include physical, social, spiritual, occupational, emotional, and intellectual aspects.

3. Promoting eating in a manner that balances individual nutritional needs, hunger, satiety, appetite, and pleasure.

4. Promoting individually appropriate, enjoyable, life-enhancing physical activity, rather than exercise that is focused on a goal of weight loss.

For more on the science of HAES, see the resources at ASDAH's website here and here.

You can participate in the New Year's Revolution by changing your Facebook and Twitter profile pictures to an image that represents something that makes you feel good about and in your body. Check out the New Year's Revolution Facebook Event at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=170500166324089 .

And for a wonderful collection of HAES friendly revolutionary resources, see the New Year's Revolution Resources Page at http://2011revolutions.blogspot.com/.

Viva la revolution! Love your body -- and mind -- and spirit!

Professor calls for an end to New Year's weight loss resolutions

The following is a press release from Jon Robison, Ph.D., nutritionist, health educator & author of The Spirit and Science of Holistic Health: More than Broccoli, Jogging, and Bottled Water... More than Yoga, Herbs, and Meditation.

OKEMOS, MI -- Ordinarily the holidays are a time for planning New Year's resolutions -- and more often than not, weight loss is at or near the top of the list.

Time for a change, according to Dr. Jon Robison, nutritionist and health educator at Michigan State University.

"The research over the last 25 years is quite clear. There is no evidence that any of the popular approaches such as low fat, low calorie & low carbohydrate result in long-term weight loss for the vast majority of people who engage in them," says Robison. "There are no exceptions and none of the approaches works any better than any of the others."

Despite this complete lack of evidence, however, people are still being seduced into trying to lose weight with the latest reincarnation of these approaches from a diet industry with $50 billion in annual revenues. Furthermore, the relentless pressure, particularly on women and children, to lose weight increases the likelihood of eating disorders, disordered eating and body hatred.

To reduce anxiety about food and weight while at the same time promoting good health, Dr. Robison recommends that people discard the weight loss focus and embrace a scientifically supported Health-Centered Approach.

Dr. Robison recently summarized this approach in a special report, "10 Things You Can Do Right Now to Ease Concerns About Your Weight & Improve Your Health." The report is currently available free of charge on his website at http://jonrobison.net/?page_id=217.  Here is a sample of the 10 Things (discussion of each suggestion follows in the report):

#1 -- Save Your Time & Money! -- Don't spend another dime on anything or anybody that even remotely suggests they will help you lose weight permanently.

#2 -- Just Say No!  -- Do no use (or let anyone else use) your weight, BMI or any other measurement of body size or composition as an indicator of health!

"While this approach differs substantially from the traditional wisdom about weight and health, please keep in mind that the traditional wisdom in this case is clearly not working or helping and may, in fact, be causing considerable harm," Robison says.

Jonathan Robison holds a doctorate in health education/exercise physiology and a master of science in human nutrition from Michigan State University, where he is adjunct assistant professor. A former co-editor of the journal Health At Every Size, he has been helping people with weight and eating-related concerns for more than 20 years. From keynotes to intensive training workshops, Dr. Robison is available to help both lay and professional groups understand and implement Health-Centered Approaches for helping people with weight- and eating-related struggles.  For more information visit his website, www. jonrobison.net.

First Do No Harm in "Childhood Obesity Campaign & Health Care Reform

Organization of health professionals, scientists & activists urges First Lady & Congress to focus on health instead of weight; evidence shows weight-based initiatives ineffective and unethical.

REDWOOD CITY, CA -- The Association for Size Diversity & Health (ASDAH) is urging First Lady Michelle Obama to shift the focus of her "childhood obesity" campaign to health rather than weight in order to address the roots of health disparities and prevent the harmful effects of weight-loss dieting.

The organization is also reaching out to leaders in the House of Representatives and Senate to express concern that weight-based language in health care reform legislation will unethically institutionalize harmful weight-loss incentives and practices as a standard feature of prevention and wellness efforts.

In letters recently sent to Mrs. Obama and Congress, the medical, psychological, nutrition and fitness professionals, researchers and parents of ASDAH's leadership team outline the problems with weight- or BMI-based approaches to health and wellness. The full text of the letters, including references to supporting research, can be read at the organization's website, www.sizediversityandhealth.org. (Ed. Note: Click here for a direct link to the text of the letters.)

Prevention and wellness programs that target weight cause harm by stigmatizing fat children and adult, increasing the incidence of eating disorders, and failing to encourage weight cycling (weight loss and regain, or "yo-yo dieting"), which has been shown to actually damage health. "It would be unethical to include anything in the health care reform package that actually promotes activities that harm health or encourage inequity," they state to House and Senate leadership.

They note to Mrs. Obama that research has shown that people can make "lasting, sustainable changes in their health practices, even though they do not change their weight."

ASDAH is offering its experts in the scientifically and economically sound Health At Every Size (HAES) perspective to work alongside the First Lady and with federal legislators to promote positive nutrition and physical activity based on scientific efficacy and access for people of all sizes.

ASDAH is an international organization composed of health professionals, scientists and activists committed to promoting all aspects of health and well-being for all populations. Its principles of Health At Every Size recognize the multidimensionality of health and well-being and promote balanced eating and enjoyable physical activity, rather than eating or exercise focused on weight loss.

Health News Review publisher blasts morning TV shows -- "obesity" related stories get the most critcism

University of Minnesota journalism professor Gary Schwitzer, publisher of HealthNewsReview.org, warns that "network TV morning health news segments may be harmful to your health" in a note published yesterday. He reports that

The morning news health segments on ABC, CBS and NBC do the following regularly:

• Unquestioningly promote new drugs and new technologies
• Feed the "worried well" by raising unrealistic expectations of unproven technologies that may produce more harm than good
• Fail to ask tough questions
• Make any discussion of health care reform that much more difficult

Health news segments focused on "obesity & weight loss & thinning" get top billing in Schwitzer's overview of poorly reported news, with ABC's Good Morning America leading the list with 4 out of the 6 examples.

The first report on a "breakthrough obesity drug" is described as "oddly" referring to "interviewee's potential conflicts of interest as evidence of expertise. Huh?" Nice that someone noticed the problem when researchers who receive funding from drug companies (or other factions of the weight loss industry) are given pulpits from which to ballyhoo the "killer-obesity" disease- and fear-mongering.

Another Good Morning America segment on "Blasting Inches Off Without Surgery: New Technique to Lose the Fat" is criticized because it "medicalizes a normal state of health -- a few additional pounds or inches."

CBS's Early Show segment on "The Real Skinny: Liposlim During Lunch?" is excoriated for showing

what the anchorman calls a 'healthy, gorgeous' young woman [getting] lunchtime lipo with no discussion of evidence or whether insurance covers it. If your premiums went up because she was in your insurance pool, would you be happy?

Schwitzer also critcizes morning TV  health news segments on paralysis and spinal cord injury, new medical technologies and "America's leading killer -- cardiovascular disease." That last category came in second to "obesity" related segments in the number of examples of horrid health journalism.

"This is a dangerous pattern," Schwitzer writes. "Such stories do more harm than good to public understanding of health care. This must change."

Read Schwitzer's whole statement here.

CDC promotes workplace discrimination with new website

CDC promotes workplace discrimination with new website

ASDAH urges removal of “Obesity Cost Calculator”
from LEAN Works! program

REDWOOD CITY, CA—The Centers for Disease Control’s new Obesity Cost Calculator tool and LEAN Works! program will increase workplace discrimination against overweight and obese employees and especially harm people of color, says the Association for Size Diversity and Health. The U.S.-based international organization strongly recommends reframing the program and removing the tool from the CDC program.

ASDAH supports programming that promotes access to good nutrition and opportunity for physical activity for people of all sizes, states ASDAH Vice President Deb Lemire. However, she cautions, “the CDC ‘obesity prevention tool’ is a license for discrimination.”

By encouraging employers to input employee demographic data to estimate the costs associated with obesity, the CDC is saying to employers that “overweight and obese employees are costing you money,” Lemire says. “It won’t take long for employers to decide that the way to ‘save’ money is to get rid of overweight and obese employees and not hire any more.”

Minority populations have much higher prevalence rates of obesity than do non-Hispanic whites, with the highest rates of obesity among African-American women. Therefore, ASDAH President Dana Schuster notes, the size discrimination propagated by the LEAN Works! program is more likely to impact minorities than it is non-Hispanic whites.

Perhaps even more troubling, ASDAH officials add, is that there is no scientific data to support the CDC claim that those who are larger use more healthcare services—and it’s impossible for the Obesity Cost Calculator to be accurate.

Data from a recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) showed that 51% of “overweight” adults are metabolically healthy and 24% of “normal weight” adults are metabolically abnormal. Research conducted by the CDC’s own scientists has found that “overweight” Americans are likely to live longer than those of “normal” weight. Recently published studies of Canadian and Japanese populations have also found higher longevity among “overweight” than “normal” weight people.

“Epidemiological trends are considered significant if there is a doubling of risk or more,” says ASDAH Research Committee Chair Paul Ernsberger, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. “Changes in cost are often much smaller, and relate as much to the marketplace as to the physical characteristics of patients. Alarmist reports, including those emanating from the CDC, add the obese to ‘the worried well’—basically healthy but concerned people who drive unnecessary medical tests and expenses.”

“The key to reduced health care costs is the promotion of healthy lifestyle choices for all employees regardless of weight,” Lemire says. “The CDC is doing a disservice to the business community and to larger individuals by spreading misinformation and reinforcing prejudicial stereotypes about ‘overweight’ and ‘obesity.’”

Ironically, she adds, those very stereotypes negatively affect the health of large people through stigma-related stress and poor quality health care. Weight-focused health messages also increase body shame, eating-disordered behavior and health care avoidance, particularly among women of all sizes.

ASDAH is an international organization composed of health professionals, scientists and activists committed to promoting all aspects of health and well-being for people of all sizes. ASDAH promotes the weight-neutral movement known as Health At Every Size, which calls for size acceptance, an end to weight discrimination, and lessening of the cultural obsession with weight loss and thinness.

Pharmaceutical industry ties revealed for NPR psychiatrist

The New York Times reported yesterday that Frederick K. Goodwin, M.D., host of the NPR program "The Infinite Mind," has earned more than a million dollars giving "marketing lectures for drugmakers"--- which he never mentioned on the program and denied to his producer.

The Times reports that Dr. Goodwin (who claims he told his producer about his pharmaceutical-company consulting and denies it had any influence on his broadcasts) claimed on his show, among other things, that the "mood stabilizers" increasingly being given to children diagnosed with bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic-depression) were "safe and effective"....never disclosing that GlaxoSmithKline paid him more than $329,000 that year to promote the mood stabilizer Lamictal.

The psychiatrist and radio host...is the latest in a series of doctors and researchers whose ties to drugmakers have been uncovered by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. Dr. Goodwin, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is the first news media figure to be investigated.

Dr. Goodwin's weekly radio programs have often touched on subjects important to the commercial interests of the companies for which he consults....

Mr. Grassley's investigation demonstrates how deeply pharmaceutical commercial interests reach into academic medicine, and it has shown that universities are all but incapable of policing these arrangements...

I love this part [Note: sarcasm; emphasis mine.]:

[Goodwin] blamed a changing ethical environment for any misunderstandings with [his producer] about his consulting arrangements. "More than 10 years ago, when he and I got involved in this effort, it didn't occur to me that my doing what every other expert in the field does might be considered a conflict of interest," Dr. Goodwin said.

He defended the views he expressed in many of his radio programs and said that, because he consulted for so many drugmakers at once, he had no particular bias.

"These companies compete with each other and cancel each other out," he said.

Oh, really? Is that why there are so few people on medication in this country? (The Times points out that "experts who consult for drugmakers tend to minimize the value of nondrug or older drug treatments.)

The Times also recently reported that federal drug experts have criticized the growing use of antipsychotic drugs for children, which in part has been driven by the "sudden popularity of the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar."

I wonder when will Grassley -- or the Times -- investigate the ties of "obesity" experts to the pharmaceutical and medical device industries?

Read the complete Goodwin article here.

[In the interest of full disclosure -- about eight years ago a pharmaceutical company paid me to provide expert opinion/commentary on women's body image as part of their marketing of a product intended to increase hair growth. And I currently am part of the Council for Women's Nutrition Solutions, which is funded by the beef industry.]

Food fascists and the revolution

Paul Campos has another great column in today's Rocky Mountain News. This one's on food fascism.

One of my favorite bits is where Paul points out that "the center of the government's current response to the panic over 'childhood obesity'" is the absurd belief that "the reason there are fat kids in America is that fat kids haven't been informed that it's considered desirable in this culture to be thin."

This "rampant insanity," he notes, "makes about as much sense as arguing that poor people are poor because they haven't been informed it's considered desirable in this culture to be rich."

But best of all is his closing recommendation to engage in individual acts of rebellion -- getting angry at "the lies that bombard us 24 hours a day about what's supposedly wrong with our bodies," and about "a culture that's dedicated to making people try to fix things about themselves that aren't broken." 

Enjoy a doughnut, he urges. "The revolution starts one body at a time."

Read the entire column here. (Do yourself a favor, though, and don't read the comments...as with responses to most public articles about fatness, fat hatred abounds.)