In different cultures at different times, there have been radically different views of female "beauty". Some cultures have seen women as most desirable when they are voluptuous. The reason is not hard to find. When a family is rich, it can afford to buy all the best food. This shows most clearly in the children, particularly the girls and women who are less active than the boys. So when food is generally in short supply and what you can afford is not very nutritious, you almost certainly grow up thin. When you are looking to marry money, you therefore look for a well-padded son or daughter of marriageable age. At other times when even the rich cannot find good food, everyone makes a virtue of being thin, even accentuating the figure by using corsets to pinch in the waist to the disappearing point. In modern times, the one question of body size has been hijacked by big business. Magazines are full of pictures showing young women of painful thinness. This makes the ordinary person dissatisfied. The food industry therefore sells weight loss meals. The pharmaceutical industry sells pills and diet supplements. The publishing industry sells walls of books on weight loss, healthy eating, nutrition, cooking for weight loss, and so on. The world grows rich on the backs of those in search of weight loss.

So, cutting through all the hype and marketing double-speak, is there any one diet or strategy to make weight loss easier? Surely one of the books that sell in their millions, must have some value? Well, if weight loss was easy, no-one would be overweight. No matter who you are, where you live or what your lifestyle, shedding unwanted pounds is a challenge. The most interesting piece of research came out in February, 2009. It allocated a large group of people to four diets with different levels of fat, proteins and carbohydrates. Each of the four diets was nutritionally sound and offered healthy outcomes to the cardiovascular system. People were followed over two years and encouraged to keep the diet going for as long as possible. There were no significance differences in the results. Everyone lost an average of 7% of their body weight regardless of the diet followed. So here is a message from someone without a book to sell. People who follow a calorie-reduced diet lose weight regardless whether that diet is high- or low-carb, high- or low-fat, high- or low-protein.

The biology could not be easier to describe. We store fat in our bodies against the need for energy when there is no food to eat. At that time, we burn the fat to give us the energy we need. An effective diet tricks the body into burning the fat. It’s the equivalent of a famine. The lower the calorie intake, the faster you burn the fat, but the more hunger you will feel. This is where a drug like meridia becomes so important. This is one of the leading appetite suppressants, sending a message to your brain that your stomach is full. If you stop feeling hungry, it’s easier to keep to the diet. Over time, your stomach will naturally contract and you genuinely will be full when you eat smaller portions. Meridia helps you lose weight safely.