A buyer's guide to America's best-selling diet pills.

On the second page of this two page ad the reader gets a description of all the "best-selling" diet pills. They might as well just call them the "most popular" or say "everyone is doing it." The first page imbeds the idea that "Everybody wants to lose weight," and here they give you so many ways to do it, none of them requiring effort, thought, or consideration!

The first one says "Eat all you want and still lose weight?" Though it implies that readers of this ad can continue to eat fast food six times a day, that is not actually how this pill works. No, you take this pill before you eat, and then you don't want to eat!

Then there is the "Belly Fat" pill, which is cross promoted here also as a "feel good" pill because it reduces stress. Fantastic! I can be skinny and happy, with just one pill. Of course, if you become skinny you will also become happy, right?

Then they outline the pill for those who are "significantly overweight" and caution that this pill is only for those who are truly obese. Of course it costs $153 a bottle so it "is much too expensive and much too powerful for the casual dieter." I find this particularly disturbing because they act like they are cautioning the reader here, implying that this ad wouldn't lead readers astray. Whoever is paying for his ad just wants to help readers find "the right" diet pill.

Or two. Becuase in the pink box they explain how celebrities like to "combine two or more diet pills" to lose weight super-fast. They flat-out explain the upper-downer cycle: "One pill picks you up, the other pill calms you down...both of them help you lose weight...but together, oh my goodness!" But don't worry, they let you konw that the makers of the drugs do not condone combo-pilling. Okay, but what about doctors? They don't bother to note that many people who combo-pill (celebs or not) go to multiple doctors to get multiple prescriptions.

As you can see, this ad is absolutley creepy and conniving. It never says who has paid for it, and all of the pills are from different manufacturers. It must be some kind of consortium. This adds to the disturbing factor because again it could appear that it was written by an unbiased third party. It makes me sick to think about someone who doesn't have good critical thinking skills and who suffers from low body image or self esteem. They would be on the phone to their doctor immediately to get the cure to all their problems.

But don't worry, if you're not a pill person, they've thrown in a "slimming gel" for good measure. "You can even apply [Tummy Flattening Gel] to your double chin."