More than one in 20 teens have taken over-the-counter weight loss products, such as diet pills or laxatives, in the past year, a new global study shows.
Among general teenagers, this rose to nearly one in 10 teenage children who had taken diet aids in their lifetime, with girls “highly” likely to take them, the study found.
According to the study, diet pills were the weight-loss product most used by teens, followed by laxatives and diuretics.
The research was published in JAMA Network Open – an open-access monthly medical journal published by the American Medical Association.
It was a collection of 90 studies conducted on 604,552 children aged 18 or under – and included research from United kingdom, EuropeNorth America, the Caribbean and Asia.
The region where the use of weight loss products was most common was North America, followed by Asia, then Europe. Other areas need more research, the authors said.
“Non-prescription weight-loss products in children are not medically recommended for maintaining a healthy weight because they are ineffective, and they are dangerous,” said the authors of the study, led by the School of Public and Preventive Health at Monash University in Melbourne. They are associated with unhealthy weight gain in adulthood, and increase the risk of an eating disorder diagnosis within several years of onset of use.
“Furthermore, the use of non-prescription weight loss products in childhood has been associated with low self-esteem, depression, poor nutrition, and substance abuse.”
They described the findings as a “public health concern” because associations were found between the use of weight-loss products and girls with low self-esteem or pressure from parents, peer groups or social media to lose weight.
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Tom Quinn, director of external affairs at eating disorder charity Beat, also warned that non-prescribed medications exacerbate eating disorder behaviors and make recovery more difficult.
“We are very sad and disturbed that so many children and young people have been able to obtain diet pills and laxatives,” he said.
“There is huge pressure on young people to lose weight, and we often hear from people who struggle with low self-esteem and body image as part of their eating disorder.
“Weight-loss medications are very dangerous, especially if taken without a prescription, but the promise of ‘quick results’ is often very attractive to people with eating disorders even if it harms their health.”
Quinn said there should be stricter laws to ensure weight loss products are not sold “to people with or at risk of eating disorders.”
