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I was saddened to see a two page advertisement for the weight loss drug Alli towards the front of Everyday Food, a magazine I enjoy. The ad opens with the heading “Let’s talk about healthy eating” and continues to talk about how people need to enjoy the foods that they are eating or else the changes they are making in their weight loss plan won’t last.

The last time I checked, dieting meant eating healthier and exercising more. As Marion Nestle, a well respected nutritionist and the author of Food Politics and What to Eat, says: Eat Less and Move More. Pretty darned logical, if you ask me.

But instead, Alli is a pill that if used in conjunction with a healthier diet, may help you lose extra weight. It works by preventing your body from absorbing about 1/4 of the fat in the foods that you eat, so they strongly suggest that you eat foods lower in fat to avoid some of their “treatment effects.” Huh?

I was used to hearing about all of the side effects from medications that are advertised on TV (you know the drill – “if you experience headache, nausea, dry mouth, vomiting and sudden death, please contact your physician). But the information on the Alli website sent me running in the opposite direction! Try these on for size.

And remember that they are listed on the same website that is trying to SELL you their product:

• If you eat a meal with too much fat, you may get gas with oily spotting, loose stools and more frequent stools that may be hard to control
• While no one likes experiencing treatment effects, they might help you think twice about eating questionable fat content. If you think of it like that, alli can act like a security guard for your late-night cravings
• You may feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it’s probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work
• You may not usually get gassy, but it’s a possibility when you take alli. The bathroom is really the best place to go when that happens

YIKES!!!
While I wished that this magazine would focus on healthy recipes and a healthy lifestyle, I now realize that they make their money from advertisers, not from subscribers like me.   In our family, we will keep doing what we already do.  We will eat healthy foods, eat in season, be reasonable about our portion sizes, and keep moving.  But no matter what, I won’t be putting on any dark pants to help me hide the “treatment effects” of a chemical wish for something better.