Miracle-Diet Ads Lie? Well, Duh!

Things took a bad turn when, in my opinion, Cleland didn't get nearly excited enough when he found out I had read his entire 60-page report. There was no "I love your stuff too" or "my editor took out all the good fen/phen jokes." However, he invited me to be a member of the panel of the Weight Loss Advertising Workshop in Washington on Nov. 19--he said I could fill out the application form on the FTC website if I wanted to. But it didn't seem as if we were bonding. In fact, I ultimately decided against attending the meeting when he told me the agency isn't allowed to serve food. "One of our rules is that we don't supply food for conferences. If we have a meeting, the staff has to buy the coffee. I have no clue why," he said. I'm guessing it's because there is no money left after spending 2 1/2 years proving that diet ads are fake.

I asked Cleland whom he was planning on bringing down next: phone psychics? Gene Shalit? The woman on the other end of the phone-sex line who probably isn't a 25-year-old blond with large breasts and a penchant for the phrase "much funnier writer than David Sedaris"? I may have revealed a little too much to the FTC guy.

I got Cleland to admit that most people who buy diet pills know they don't work, and that the Venn diagram of those people and the people who read FTC reports doesn't have enough overlap to be worth 2 1/2 years of effort. What he didn't understand, and why he should use whatever little bit of remaining FTC budget he has left to take his staff to a Eugene O'Neill play, is that people want to be deceived. You don't go to John Edward because you believe, but because it's nice to pretend you believe, to bask in the lie. Miracle cures aren't about the cure, but about the miracle. And while that may mean grating lobster shell on my salad, it still sounds a lot better than working out.