Actions: Fool the Diet Industry!

 Posted in FaT GiRL 2 — February, 1995

Title:  Fool the Diet Industry!
Date(s) of creation:  February, 1995
Creator / author / publisher:  FaT GiRL
Physical description:  Two zine pages with dense text including two columns of business listings with phone numbers, and one small illustration of multiple human skeletons in a pile.
Reference #:  FG2-017-018-Fool
Links: [ PDF ]

From FaT GiRL #2, February, 1995

Fool the Diet Industry! 

Start your April Fools’ Day off right. Spend some time on Friday, March 31st (the day before April Fools’ Day) tying up the phone lines of those evil profiteers (yup, the diet industry rakes in about $33 billion a year!) and make them pay for it, too! Call their 800-numbers (all of us at once!) and keep ’em on the line as long as you can. 

Let them babble on-the longer you keep them on the phone, the more it costs them, both in phone charges and lost business. We don’t want some unknowing person to get through the lines and actually sign up! Don’t give them your name or address if they ask. 

Ask them:

  • What’s your name? (to put them on their best behavior) 
  • Can you tell me about your program? 
  • What is your success rate?
  • Who conducted the study on your success rate?
  •  How long did you follow participants in your study?
  • Is there really a study? Can I get a copy of the results?
  • Have you personally tried this diet?
  • Do you have a money-back guarantee? If not, why not?
  • Are there any medical risks involved?
  • Have there been any lawsuits against your company? 
  • Who owns this company? If it’s a franchise, does the parent company monitor its children?
  • Can you provide an explanation for the research that indicates that 95-98% of diets fail within three years?
  • Can you explain the research that indicates that dieting is the cause of many illnesses usually blamed on obesity?
  • Is there any truth to the rumor that Jenny Craig recently gained 70 pounds?

Keep ’em talking; they’re not supposed to hang up! If you don’t actually “harass” them, they’ll potentially stay on the line with you all day. (It could be the start of a beautiful relationship, and they might even learn something!)

Editor’s note:

Download the PDF for the actual business listings, and remember, this list is from 1995, so not current.

FaT GiRL 2 Pages