A radical new weight loss scheme that does not have any particular trade name but is sometimes referred to as "vegan" or "healthy vegan" has reportedly duped dozens of Americans into yet another diet scam by promising them better health.
“I have to grant it to these folks, it’s very clever,” said gastric bypass surgeon Dr. Anthony Belley of New York City of the sophisticated marketing scheme employed by the individuals responsible for promoting this unnamed new fad diet. “They tell people that this approach to eating will lower their blood pressure, reverse their type 2 diabetes, prevent heart disease and cancer and all kinds of things, and people sign up, not realizing that this is just another fad diet that will help them lose weight.”
He added, “It’s clever, but also very misleading. I wish they would just call it what it is: another SlimFast, grapefruit diet, whatever – another diet scam. At least then people would know what they’re in for.”
Dr. Belley went on to bemoan the diet culture that is so pervasive in American society and makes people feel bad about their bodies, feel pressured to eat kale, and/or feel compelledd to exercise all the time. That’s where his work comes in.
“I help people see that it’s not about them or what they’re doing or not doing. It’s about what their intestines are doing,” he explained. “We help improve the functioning of the entire gastroenterological system by reducing their stomach to about the size of an egg. Meaning that they’ll feel fully satisfied every time they eat an egg.”
He hastened to emphasize, “Not that eggs are all they can eat. That’s just about all they can eat at one time, in terms of the amount of food. You get what I'm saying.”
Unfortunately, said Dr. Belley, this radical new fad diet weight loss scheme that has no handy, catchy name – an enormous marketing oversight on "their" part – but is sometimes referred to as "vegan," “whole-food plant-based” or “healthy vegan” distracts people from the fact that it is just another scam by shifting the focus to preventing and reversing chronic disease, sometimes scarcely mentioning that significant weight loss is a likely, even inevitable result for those in larger-sized bodies.
“It’s a bait-and-switch,” he said. “People come in thinking this about health, not just another diet, and then they end up losing all this weight. If people actually fell for it, medical care in this country would radically decline since practices like mine would be put out of business.”
Fortunately, Dr. Belley noted, the large majority of Americans are far too smart to fall for the deceptive diet scam disguised as a plan to get healthy.
“People are very clear that you get what you pay for, and the fact that this scheme doesn’t require any doctors, medical experts, or expensive medical procedures tells people that this approach can’t be worth much. That’s what I’m banking on, anyway.”
