Mend Your Diet

The dangers of diet pills?

I have a friend who is 13, and she is taking diet pills. She takes double the reccomended dose, and claims its OK because they are "all natural". I know diet pills are completely unhealthy, but what makes them dangerous? She is anorexic/bulimic, and i really want to help convince her of the dangers of diet pills, what can i say? some actual medical advice would be more appreciated than "shes dumb and needs help" this is urgent...please

Public Comments

1. I have tried pretty much every diet pill under the sun and 99% of them are crap. At that age she needs a decent diet of healthy foods and some fun exercise. Do what you can to get her off them and if she is anorexic then it is a lot more serious than just taking tablets. Depending on how bad she is perhaps get her to do things that take her mind off weight, keep her busy with fun activities or maybe see what it is that is causing her self esteem to be so low. Also, if you don't have any luck with that you can look for fibre based tablets. They ironically are expensive but do nothing more than what a good bowl of bran would do. This may work as a placebo affect without causing any real damage.
2. You need to get to the root of the problem and tell her looks aren't everything. Life will go by really quick, and when you get older, you can't look like you did 5-10 years ago, so why put so much emphasis on looks? If she wants to look good so a particular guy will like her, then she needs to be told that that guy is a complete moron. If you lose weight for him, and he likes you purely because of looks, then later on, when he sees somebody he likes better because of looks, he'll cheat on you and leave you. Tell her she needs to just be healthy physically and be a good person, then when a guy likes her, he likes her for something permanent -- her character, not something as flimsy as looks. I hope that helps, but that's really what she NEEDS to hear... the "diet pills are unhealthy" lecture will not cut it for her.
3. There is a lot of stuff which is "natural" which is very unhealthy for you. Anything that alters one's appetite will do other things as well. Most appetite suppresants affect the central nervous system, liver, and kidneys. The good news (or bad news depending on your point of view) is that the effects on otherwise healthy people may not cause noticeable symptoms for years. The dose has a lot to do with how anything affects you. People kill themselves by taking overdoses of simple aspirin. Even things like fried foods are more harmful in large doses. It sounds like someone has a lot of anxiety about their appearance. This is pretty common but there are better ways of dealing with it. It sounds like someone needs something else to boost their self esteem.