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Liquid-Diet company ‘misled’ dieters
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Posted April 11, 2008 Diet firm LighterLife claims to have enabled 60,000 people to lose three stones in three months.
The liquid-based diet, aimed at people who are more than three stone overweight, involves consuming just 530 calories a day for 12 weeks.
But Inside Out has heard from some dieters who have experienced disrupted periods, hair loss and water poisoning.
LighterLife say very low calorie diets help people to lose weight quickly and safely.
Lizzie Whitehead from Norfolk began to worry about her health, she decided to tell her LighterLife counsellor that she was giving up the diet.
Ms Whitehead said: “I explained to her that it was due to how the diet had messed up my menstrual cycle and caused me to feel so ill.
“She basically said ‘well that’s just one of the side effects, feeling ill. You’ve just got to carry on, you’ll get past it’.
When BBC undercover researchers asked two random LighterLife counsellors, what side effects might be experienced they were told the worst they could expect was a headache.
Inside Out asked Bar Hewlett, a founder and director of LighterLife, why the counsellors did not warn dieters about side effects such as hair loss and interrupted periods.
She said: “If a counsellor is asked about the side effects of weight loss there would be a different answer than if they were asked about the side effects of a very low calorie diet.”
The Eating Disorders Association (now called B-eat), told the BBC: “We don’t make referrals to LighterLife or any other diet.
“Anyone with an eating disorder should talk to their GP and be referred for specialist medical help.”
The BBC Inside Out programme can be seen on BBC1 at 1930 BST on Friday 11 April.
I worked at LighterLife until December last year. The allegations made on Inside Out were incredible – that is unbelievable. During my time at the Company the Client ALWAYS came first. The staff are professional and expert and their mantra is to help people whose only alternative may be risky bariatric surgery or life threatening obesity related illness. Let’s face it, if you are seriously overweight (like most LighterLife clients) you do have an eating disorder and the Counselling is designed to overcome that. I spoke to many many happy clients who have lost the weight and kept it off.