For most people, it really is about eating less calories

Historically, a problem with diet research is that the researchers weren’t able to track what the participants are actually eating.  (Because many people lie or have unreliable memories.)  But by using something called doubly-labeled water, scientists are able to measure how many calories a person actually ate.  Those who are the most obese tend to eat significantly more than average.  They also tend to underestimate how much they actually eat (see “The validity of self-reported energy intake as determined using the doubly labelled water technique“).

A limited number of cases are due to genetics, medication, and other factors.

You can eat as much as you want and lose weight

Some studies are based on ad libitum (ad lib) diets, where the subjects are allowed to eat as much as they want as long as it follows the prescribed diet.  These diets may work because the subjects are trying to be healthier, they are trying to please their experimenters+nutritionist, or it could also be that they are eating less calories.  Some diets try to ‘trick’ people into eating less calories by making them eat less energy-dense foods (e.g. fruits and vegetables).  Or to put it differently… if you try to eat more fruits and vegetables, you will likely end up eating less calories every day.  Some studies show that ad libitum diets are slightly more effective than calorie-restricted diets, possibly because subjects find them easier to follow (and are cheating less?).

See “Provision of Foods Differing in Energy Density Affects Long-Term Weight Loss“.

Almost any diet will cause some weight loss

There are studies that look at:

• Low-fat versus low-carb
• High-protein versus low-protein
• Low-fat vegetarian versus ADA diet for diabetics
• “Paleo” diets
• Low-energy density diets
• Low glycemic index diets

Subjects show weight loss on all of these diets.

The bad news: subjects almost always (slowly) gain back the weight that they lost

Scientists haven’t quite figured out how to get people to keep weight off for the people who enroll in studies. This may be because subjects adhere less to their intervention.

Does that mean obese people are doomed?  I don’t think that it’s necessarily the case.  If you look at smoking, studies show that only roughly 10-33% are able to quit.  Yet surveys show that most people don’t have difficulty quitting smoking and that most do so cold turkey, without any special help.  Those who are more prone to success may be less likely to enroll in studies because they have already achieved their goals.

While researchers know that eating less calories will lead to weight loss, it may be difficult for human beings to actually follow this advice.  If we look at smoking, many smokers exhibit a desire to quit and may have tried several times to quit.  But they don’t.

Do we know for sure that overeating causes obesity?

Over the short term, there are many controlled studies that link calorie consumption to weight.  A potential flaw in the prevailing wisdom is that there are no long-term controlled studies (over several years) as far as I know.  Participants could be locked up in an institution while researchers carefully control and measure their food intake.  Such a study would require people willing to be somewhat isolated from the outside world and such a study may be very expensive to conduct (if done ethically).  As far as I know, no such study has been performed.  Scientists have performed such research to study dental health, but it was rather unethical as they tested mental health patients who were institutionalized.

What successful weight losers do

The National Weight Control Registry states that: “NWCR members [...] report continuing to maintain a low calorie, low fat diet and doing high levels of activity“.  However, this data may be affected by selection bias and does not scientifically prove that a low-calorie, low-fat diet with high levels of activity will work for everybody (studies show that it usually does not).

Low-fat versus low-carb

Surprisingly enough, low-carb diets seem to cause slightly more/faster weight loss than low fat.  However, side effects are higher in low-carb diets.  The issues of bias are tricky as most researchers have a bias against low-carb diets as it flies against the conventional wisdom.  It is in researchers’ interest to have their publications cited by others often, so there can be subtle incentives to conform.  On the other hand, when it comes to diet, some people have a religious attachment to their beliefs and may distort data to fit the desired conclusions.  So I would be careful about biases on both sides of the debate.

Studies show that those on a low-fat diet also slowly regain weight over time compared to conventional diets.  They are also largely ineffective in studies.

Weight loss pills

Amphetamines used to be prescribed for weight loss.  For very good reasons, this is no longer the case (amphetamines are considered a harmful drug).  Human ‘innovation’ will likely lead to more types of pills being proposed as a cure for weight loss.  However, I would personally be vary of trying such pills.  Historically, drugs have been prescribed and later on we discover that the cure is worse than the disease.  This has also historically been the case with artificial sweeteners and also for Olestra- almost all of these products have been pulled from the market.

There are a lot of affiliate marketing sites on the Internet that promote weight loss pills, mainly because [A] there is a lot of appeal to magical pills that solve our problems and [B] the margins on pills is incredibly high as they cost less than $1/bottle.  I would personally wait until other people try such ‘magical cures’ and wait for studies to show their effectiveness (or lack thereof).

I have not done research on Orlistat.

Surgery

Studies do show that various types of surgery result in weight loss.  These studies typically track the level of complication rates and mortality rates following surgery.  The exact mortality rate is hard to pin down because surgery is typically performed on people who are less healthy than average.  Also, the obese have higher complication rates because it is difficult to operate on obese patients.

Those publishing the papers and statistics may have biases.  It is in surgeons’ interests to promote surgery (especially one that they have worked hard to pioneer) and play down its downsides.  Some people have biases against surgery (I am in this camp).

Some (most?) types of surgery do not have randomized, controlled long-term studies tracking whether or not patients are actually healthier following surgery.  Weight loss surgery tends to cause significant reductions in weight and most patients no longer have to take medication for diabetes.  On the other hand, there is a small chance of death, a chance of complications from the surgery, and the surgery may not necessarily be that effective in the long term as patients regain significant amounts of weight for some forms of weight loss surgery.

I would encourage you to do your own research.

Here is one:  Dermajuv

http://www.dermajuv.com/aff/

Dermajuv affiliate program.  They have many affiliate shills who talk about their products and say they are the “best” when they are nothing more than cheap creams. They populate comments as in the prior example.

They even give $20 for signing up these shill marketers!

Many real Dermajuv consumer reviews do exist. Can’t hide those ones.

Careful folks.  More coming to the list very soon.

A typical format for an affiliate page would be a review site comparing 3-10 products, with one product getting the best rating (e.g. 5 star) and another product getting a mediocre or bad rating (e.g. 2-3 stars).  Making all the products 5 stars doesn’t work because people will pick up on that.  Two-sided reviews tend to be more effective.

The product that makes the affiliate marketer the most money gets the top spot, followed by the next most profitable, etc. etc.

So do these products really work?  I don’t know because I’m not a woman or a dermatologist.  But I can tell you that you need to be very careful when it comes to these products because a lot of deceptive practices are used to market them.  Here are a few of them:

Fake comments

Some sites will add fake comments from “visitors” to add an element of social proof.  We tend to be more likely to do something if everybody else is doing it too.  If this trick didn’t work, affiliate marketers wouldn’t be using it.

The following example is from wrinkleserased.com/lifecell-skin-cream/.  In this particular case, all the commenters’ websites point to http://none/.  Clearly these aren’t real comments because real people won’t post the same broken link.  This is a case where the affiliate marketer didn’t do a good job at making the comments look realistic.

Geo-targeting

Some websites will also personalize the landing page to its visitors so that the author of the page appears to be from the same city.  For example, Suppose I go to the site riyawrinklefree.com and I am browsing the Net from Toronto, Ontario (ON).

I see the following comment on the site:

This is performed by a Javascript on that site.  (Disabling Javascript will cause that script to not work and show blanks instead.)

What a coincidence!! I'm from <b>
                          <script src="http://j.maxmind.com/app/geoip.js"></script><script type="text/javascript"><!--
document.write(geoip_city());
// --></script>, <script type="text/javascript"><!--
document.write(geoip_region());
// --></script> </b>too! How long did it take to ship?

Sneaky bastards.

Appeal to authority

A lot of these sites will post logos of major media outlets on their site (e.g. ABC, CBS, New York Times, CBS, National Post, etc.) to give their product some credibility.  But chances are, none of these media outlets talk about the specific product being sold.

Similar appeals are made to celebrities and to TV personalities such as Oprah and Dr. Oz.  Affiliate marketers will find weak excuses to claim a connection to make the product sound more credible.

Some other products in this space

• Lifecell
• Dermajuv
• Belisi RX
• Revitol
• Athene 7 minute facelift
• Alphaderma CE
• Strivectin SD
• Freeze 24/7
• Murad Resurgence
• Hydroderm
• And many more

Be careful out there!

Let’s look at one affiliate site I found by searching for “weight loss”.  The URL is http://www.laurasdietsuccess.com/gca1/index.php
This site tries to sell the ThermothinPlus with Acai and Colon Cleanse products.

1- Geotargeting

The website is targeted specifically to the visitor’s location, in this case Toronto.  The affiliate marketer is hoping that visitors will relate more to somebody from their own city.

If you visit the website from a different IP address, you will actually get a totally different site.  In the alternate version of the site, the “Laura Johnson” character (probably the affiliate marketer pretending to be a fat chick) is apparently somebody who has created a weight loss system, not some fake blogger recommending a product that “worked” for her.

2- Images likely made up

Affiliate marketers usually pull images from Google Images or sxc.hu because it’s a way to quickly put something together (they are always tinkering with their webpages to figure out what will convert better).  In this case I couldn’t figure out where the images came from.  But it’s highly likely that the images are of different people.

Firstly, in the before/after comparison, anybody who loses such significant weight will likely have excess, flabby skin. When people lose a lot of weight, they don’t lose the skin.  Trying Google images on “weight loss loose skin”.

Also, the page shows another set of before/after pictures.  But the “after” picture in that set does not match the earlier set- there’s no way that the cute brunette sitting on that bed is the same person as the one pictured below.  The flab does not fit the other.

Bottom line: it’s very likely that these are all different people.

3- The site claims that 46 pounds was lost… but the first sett of pictures shows a much more dramatic weight loss.

4- To gain credibility, the site points out that the product was endorsed by Dr. Oz on the Rachel Ray show.  Affiliate marketers will try to associate the product with authoritative or trustworthy sources in order to induce visitors into buying.  Dr. Oz probably never endorsed the weight loss products in question.

5- The site is a “blog”.

The marketer is trying to gain the visitor’s trust.  The site is masquerading as a blog where the blogger relates her own experience about a particular product in a way that appears less biased than a hard-sell (which don’t work).

It should be obvious that the site is a blog only in appearance.  There is no other content on the site.  When you try to navigate away from the page, a pop-up is thrown up that makes a last-ditch attempt at converting the visitor.

6- The site was updated this month.

If you look in the HTML code of the website, there is a Javascript that changes the text to the current month.

—

Other tricks in the text of the website:

- The author talks about her experiences in a way that the target audience would/might relate to.

I tried all the “brand-name” diets like Atkins, South Beach, cabbage (my least favorite) soup, lemon juice. I even tried weight management plans like Weight Watches – the food was horrible! I eventually gave up. I stopped going out with friends. I felt ugly. I started eating more and more because I just didn’t care. I was in a downward spiral.

There’s a lot of people out there (fat and thin, male and female) who are very insecure about their weight.  They would probably relate well to other insecure people.  They would also have the shared experience of trying diets that don’t work.

Act soon!!!

The first part of the page is designed to get the visitor interested (”this worked for me” / “this can make you thin”) and to make the visitor trust the blogger.

Halfway into the page, there is copy that makes it appear as if the visitor’s chance of getting a deal on the weight loss products is disappearing.

Please do also make sure to order those free packages right now. Because the ThermothinPlus Free Trial Offer is expiring on July 31, 2009 and the Colon Cleanse Free Trial is expiring on July 31, 2009! So make sure to get yours before they run out of stock!

The marketer is trying to get the visitor to act quickly and not carefully research the purchase.  Of course, there is a Javascript on the page that keeps updating the date to whatever the current date is.

Social Proof

At the end of the blog, there are a bunch of comments left by the blog’s “readers”.  This may be an attempt to use social proof.  People are more inclined to do something if everybody else is doing it.

Choice of weight loss products

Affiliate marketers will promote the products with the best payouts, which tends to be the products with the highest margins.  It costs less than a dollar to make a bottle full of pills.

Do the products actually work? It’s extremely unlikely.

Are people really dumb enough to fall for this stuff?

You might be asking yourself that.  Keep in mind that while most people are smart enough to be skeptical, there are people out there who are extremely insecure about their weight.  So insecure that they will try a lot of things to be skinny.  And many anorexics don’t even realize that they aren’t fat.

It’s sad that affiliate marketers prey on these people… but that is what they do.  And it works. There is also a lot of money to be made.  Some marketers make six to seven figures a year doing affiliate marketing.

No honour among thieves

Another practice among affiliate marketers is to simply copy somebody else’s campaign.  Hence, Sandra’s diet blog.  However, the copycat didn’t do a very good job as their geotargeting failed and left blanks on the blog page.  Oops.

The sinister thing about affiliate marketing on the Internet is that some marketers will say ANYTHING to make a sale.  Some of them will engage in deceptive practices like “independent” review sites.  Don’t get suckered by these sites as their goal is to make as much money as possible rather than providing useful information.  And in some cases, the marketers putting up these sites haven’t even used the products or services they are marketing.

How to spot affiliate links

To check for an affiliate link, move your mouse cursor over the link and look at the URL that is displayed by your web browser in the lower part of your screen. You should see the following URL for the previous link:

http://www.somemanufacturer.com/BI/1234/KBID/5678

The codes /BI/1234/KBID/5678 at the end of the link identify the affiliate marketer’s account (1234 and 5678 are made up numbers).

Other affiliate links look like the following:

http://affiliatename.cybersam.hop.clickbank.net (Anything with clickbank in it is probably an affiliate link.)

http://affiliates.opienetwork.com/ez/abcdefgh/

http://www.hostmonster.com/track/opie/affiliateAccountName

http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-1234567-12345678 (commission junction link; will redirect to the retailer’s website.)

http://www.fatcow.com/join/index.bml?AffID=1234567

Unfortuantely, there are ways for affiliates to cloak their links to make them hard to spot. To spot those links, you can download a Firefox add-on called Live HTTP headers.  The add-on will let you spot the sequence of re-directs and show you all the URLs, which may contain the affiliate link.  Fortunately, most affiliate marketers aren’t bothering to cloak their links.

Another way of spotting fake review sites is if you found the site through paid advertising. Those who pay for advertising (e.g. sponsored links in Google) is looking to make money.

But be careful!  Not all shill marketers have affiliate links on their website!  Many companies have employees write positive reviews while posing under fake identities.  Some marketers are crafty and will hide their tracks, e.g. by not using affiliate links.  Sometimes, sloppy fake reviews can be detected if the marketer does not write natural-sounding reviews or does not cover their tracks completely (e.g. uses same IP, IP does not match their stated location, etc.).  However, there is little that can be done to prevent a good shill from posting positive fake reviews.