Australia ranks third highest in the world in the sales of weight-loss products per head, behind only United States and Japan, as its people continue to look for quick fixes and gimmicks in their struggle with a nationwide weight problem.
　　According to an investigation by the Herald Sun, Australians are spending A$500 million (US$280 million) each year on weight-loss programmes, pills and potions. The amount has increased by more than 50 percent from four years back.

Australians have spent A$103 million (US$57.78 million) on diet products alone in 1999 - an increase from $67 million (US$37.59 million) four years ago - according to Euromonitor International, a global market research company.

Australians have also spent A$25 million (US$14.02 million) on weight-loss books.

Similarly, the sales of low-fat food have also increased.

The boom in weight-loss products downunder is due to a mounting weight problem among the Aussies.

Researchers have warned that every Australian would be overweight by 2050 without urgent action.

Presently, almost half of Australian women and almost two-thirds of Australian men are obese or overweight. Up to one-fifth of children are also overweight or obese.

Compared to figures in 1980, Australian women have put on 4.8 kg on the average, and men have added 3.6 kg.

Australians' poor diet, laziness and higher living of standards are largely to blame, reports the Herald Sun.

Professor Gary Egger, a leading obesity researcher, said the problem was now an epidemic and it was reaching uncontrollable proportions.

He said it would be potentially disastrous in the next decade in terms of drain of health resources.

Obesity related illness is now costing the nation at least A$840 million (US$471.24 million) each year.

Almost 18,000 people die from heart disease and diabetes - both linked strongly to obesity and lack of exercise - every year.

Dr David Crawford of Deakin University, who is also a National Heart Foundation nutrition research fellow, said obesity was a huge medical problem that heightened the risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, arthritis, gall bladder complications, sleep apnoea, and some cancers.

The high obesity rates have also caused a rise in emotional problems like stress and depression.

Women, hoping to be thin and pressured to attain model-like figures, are the biggest spenders in weight-loss products.

However, many are falling for marketing ploys and turning to quick fixes and gimmicks. Many Australians are choosing dubious products promising miracle results.

Euromonitor said although consumers were increasingly coming to regard weight-loss diets as an ineffective and unhealthy method of reducing weight, and were instead turning to long-term healthy eating and dieting, the desperation of many women to lose weight quickly still encouraged purchase of specific weight-loss products.

(From HealthAnswers)