Really Annoying Commercial

I’m really starting to get annoyed by a commercial that plays quite often during Cubs games on WGN. (Not sure if this speaks very highly of the demographic they expect to be watching!) It’s a new weight-loss pill that’s on the OTC market. The annoying part is all the testimonials they show and one in particular. They have a middle-aged black woman (with golden blonde hair for good measure) talk about how easy it was to lose weight on their product. Her big closing sentence: “You just…can’t…do it…alone!” Shit like that is like nails on a chalkboard to me. No, you CAN do it alone; you’re just too lazy to do it. Losing weight is simple math. If you burn more calories than you put in you lose weight. If not, you gain weight. Doesn’t matter what diet you go on, the caloric math is identical. If you go on Atkins and eat 3000 calories of chicken breast and only burn off 2500 calories a day, you’ll gain about 1 lb each week. If you eat instead ate 2000 calories of pure carbs every day, you’ll lose about 1 lb each week. People that can’t lose weight are either too lazy to increase their caloric burn through exercise or too undisciplined to limit their eating. Period. Bad knees and can’t run? Stop eating double portions and/or work with a trainer to find exercises you can do. Don’t want to give up your fatty, salty, fast food? Better become good friends with a treadmill.

Maybe my annoyance is partly due to the fact I usually under-estimate my achievements. I figure that if I could do something it really can’t be that hard. So the fact that I could lose about 20lbs in 1 year without doing anything drastic tells me that really anyone should be able to do it. Given that, I get really annoyed when people are convinced they just can’t do something that looks pretty easy to do to me.

It’s really just another sad commentary on our society. People have this strange desire to have a pill that fixes everything. Why put forth even minimal effort when they can do less and just pay a bunch of money for a pill?! Don’t worry about the cost, the side effects from short- and long-term use, or the fact that the pill is probably worthless at best. Just like herbal supplements, a lot of these infomercial-type products don’t require FDA approval. Thus, they don’t have to back up any of their claims. They don’t have to contain any of the active ingredients they site, or prove that the form the ingredients are in can be digested and absorbed by the body.

I grew up being taught the notion that you didn’t really need a pill for anything. That includes minor aches and pains. Obviously I don’t strictly adhere to this, and there are always exceptions for more extreme situations, but I try to avoid taking any medicine for as long as I can. If you see me taking some Advil you can bet that something really hurts. Hayley had to fight with me to get me to take some Tylenol when I had a fever of only 103F. Had she not been at work at the time and becoming very worried about me, I wouldn’t have done it. But that’s just me. My sister is the exact opposite. Anytime she’s less than 100%, she tries to find something she can take to reverse it.

Anyways, I got nothing better to post and I’ve tried unsuccessfully for a couple days to rewrite this to be interesting, so I’m just going to post it. I’ll see if I can do better next time. Just don’t hold your breath hoping.