Critical Evaluation of TrimSpa essay

Basically, TrimSpa is a product that is supposed to help people losing their weight. To put it more precisely, it is a dietary supplement created by the company Goen technologies. It is worthy of mention that, in actuality, there exists a variety of such products which aim at the loosing the weight of consumers. However, the arguments concerning their effectiveness are quite serious and there exist absolutely opposing points of view from total denial of a positive impact of such dietary supplements to the total support of these products. TrimSpa is not an exception.

Objectively speaking TrimSpa in its modern form is quite different from what it used to be when this dietary supplement has just appeared. At the beginning of its sales TrimSpa contained ephedra, which though was lately banned in the US and naturally, the company refused from its use in the product. Nowadays, the major active ingredient of TrimSpa is Hoodia gordonii, which effect is supported by the mild stimulants, caffeine and theobromine.

The product is supposed to work “thermogenically and by suppressing the user’s appetite” (Jonsen, 2007106). In order to promote the product the company underlined the effectiveness of TrimSpa and, what is more, the company attempted to underline the usefulness of the product to human health. However, neither the effectiveness of the product nor its usefulness to human health particularly have not been really proven.

In this respect, it is worthy of mention the study conducted with an IRB approved protocol, revealed certain effectiveness in promoting the weight loss among the women that used TrimSpa. It was an 8-week study of women with BMI between 24 to 40. In the result of the study it was found that 82% of the participants lost an average 5,91 lbs over the eight week period while the weight loss across all users averaged 4,4 lbs (Jonsen, 2007). Other studies conducted the same year, revealed the fact that the use of TrimSpa along with diet and exercises increased its effectiveness, increasing the weight loss to 7 lbs an average (Jonsen, 2007). Nevertheless, there were no serious contradictions between the studies. At the same time, all the studies were basically focused on women from 21 to 45.

Such a choice is mainly determined by the fact that the product is mainly supposed to be consumed by women who suffer from overweight problems.

At first glance, the product seemed to be quite effective but the problem was that its effectiveness did not last for a long time. To put it more precisely, it was effective as long as TrimSpa was taken. As soon as patients stopped taking TrimSpa they regained weight. In such a way, the effectiveness of TrimSpa promoted by the company in its advertising campaign turned to be not as significant as the company estimated. Moreover, the positive impact of the product on consumers’ health were not found since the main principle of the work of TrimSpa was “suppressing the appetite combined with the feelings of fullness” (Jonsen, 2007, p.168).

As a result, on January 4, 2007 the US Trade Commission had announced the marketers of TrimSpa agreed to pay a settlement of $1,5 million in response to an FTC complaint of making unsupported claims in advertisement which had been forbidden. In such a way, the fact that the presumable benefits of the product are not really true was legally recognized that naturally undermined the position of the company producing TrimSpa. At the same time, the advertisement emphasized only positive effects of TrimSpa while negative facts, such as the rapid regaining of weight after stopping the use of the product, were hidden from the audience. Moreover, the advertisement did not make any warning concerning the limitations of the use of the product, while some people might have allergy reactions caused by caffeine, for instance. In general, it should be said that the advertisement is straightforward and attempts to reach consumers, namely women who were intended consumers of the product, conscience without paying attention to real facts. Instead the ad just underlines the positive effects of losing weight without any precautions or even factual support of such statements. Moreover, the relatively low price of the product made TrimSpa really attractive to consumers compared to other similar products. The position of the company became even worse as Anna Nicole Smith, the celebrity promoting TrimSpa, was found dead.

Thus, nowadays the future of TrimSpa and the company producing it is unclear, but it is obvious that such an outcome is the result of the unreasonable advertising campaign of the product and an attempt to mislead the consumers. This is why the outcome is logical since the presumable effectiveness of the product has not been really proved.