Trusting Kim Kardashian with your Health?
The past ten years have had some great advances in how Americans respond to the media. In fact, Americans are now part of an interactive social media culture. There have been some drawbacks to this trend of celebrity availability and competitive media culture. Celebrity endorsements were once a cornerstone for good products. Valuable products often had successful marketing budgets. The celebrities stood behind what they were selling. Unfortunately, the diet and weight loss industry have shattered that trend.
Woman’s Day magazine pioneered the coverage of the downfall of celebrity endorsements. Who could forget Tom Cruise’s campaign against anti-depressant drugs? Or Jenny McCarthy’s fight for her son, with an anti-vaccine cry for help on CNN? What about Demi Moore backing the use of leeches to remain youthful? Just recently, Megan Fox has claimed vinegar shots help keep her thin! Even worse are the paid product endorsements! How many retired sports stars now pitch erectile dysfunction pills? The list can go on and on.
Sadly, many of the celebrity endorsement deals are unfounded but appear legitimate because of the star power behind them. A good portion of the products, to include advice such as the vinegar shots, go without any sufficient data to prove their claims.
Diet Dangers
Some products and diets are down right dangerous. For example, Megan Fox’s vinegar shot diet claims to get rid of “water weight” and help to “detox the body”. These claims are fraught with inconsistencies. Vinegar consumed in a shot or two a day has not been proven to detox the body. The human body is a detox machine, highly complex, but will become sick if abused by diets and fad remedies. Many of these celebrity endorsements lack any type of truth. Taking a shot of vinegar everyday, which is equal to using a few tablespoons on a salad, is not going to reduce water weight. However, replacing fatty dressings, like blue cheese for olive oil and vinegar, will start to show a difference in appearance.
Sadly, another example is Kim Kardashian’s endorsement of Quick Trim. In an interview with OK! magazine, Kardashian said she’s used several of Quick Trim’s products to quickly shed 15 pounds in just a few weeks. In reality, one capsule of Quick Trim contains as much caffeine as four cups of coffee. Too much caffeine can increase blood pressure and pulse rate. A couple of the capsules paired with a cup of Starbucks coffee (or any other caffeine drink) could result in caffeine poisoning and/or heart arrhythmia. Any type of pill claiming quick weight loss is dangerous. These products can even be considered lethal under certain circumstances.
Therefore consider celebrity endorsements as extremely harmful. It doesn’t matter who throws a football around, or sings in a commercial, highly endorsed products deserve more scrutiny than a lone product sitting on a store shelf. Businesses are in business to make money, not necessarily care about one’s health – that is up to the individual consumer. So, consumers beware!
Vianesa Vargas is a former military officer and Iraq War veteran with over 10 years of personal training and nutrition counselling experience. She offers a free weight loss planner to help people achieve weight loss goals in 30 days at http://tinyurl.com/3o9qgf8. Her new book, Food Hell! is available at http://tinyurl.com/3oe5zmf
