Supermarket Chain Just Says No to Diet Pills for Kids
Aug 15, 2005
Giant Food Stores, which operates 274 supermarkets
in six states, has voluntarily banned the sale of diet
supplements
to prospective buyers who are younger than 18.
Since Sunday every cash register in every store operated
by the company carries this sign: "Attention Customers:
You must be 18 years or older to purchase certain dietary
supplements."
The new corporate policy is the result of a complaint
by the father of a teenage girl who bought a bottle
of diet pills at one of the chain’s Pennsylvania
stores. "To be honest, what happened is that a
father called up the store and complained," said
Denny Hopkins, vice-president of advertising at the
chain, which is headquartered in Carlisle, Pa. "We
said we would look into it, and we did."
Giant Food operates as Tops Markets in Ohio and in
western New York, as Giant in Pennsylvania, and most
of New York, and as Martins Food Markets in Maryland,
Virginia and West Virginia.
Asked whether the company consulted health or nutrition
experts before pulling the plug on diet pill sales to
adolescents, Hopkins said that was unnecessary. "We
didn’t have to," he said. "We just read
the labels. It’s all there."
In fact, a quick check of the diet
pills sold in the Tops stores here found that labels
contain a variety of warnings, from the admonition to
consult a doctor if users are under 18 to the statement
that "this product is not intended for use in persons
younger than 18."
Hopkins said the company’s action goes beyond
the signs, which are also posted in the store aisles
where the pills are displayed. "We have also reprogrammed
our cash register computers so that when one of these
products is scanned, it prompts the cashier to ask for
ID," he said. This is the same register function
that is used to prompt cashiers to ask for photo IDs
before selling alcohol or cigarettes.
Giant Food has identified 46 diet products that will
trigger the age verification request on register terminals
starting with Acutrim Weight Loss Program and ending
with Xtreme Metabolife FX Caplets.
The action by Giant Food comes just two weeks after
Pediatrics published a study of 6,212 girls and 4,237
boys, ages 12 to 18, that reported 8% of girls and 12%
of boys said they used products such as protein shakes,
growth hormone, or anabolic steroids to improve appearance,
muscle mass or physical strength.
Moreover, "girls who wanted to lose weight were
more likely to than their peers to use these products,"
said lead author Alison Fields, Sc.D., an assistant
professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
Source: http://www.medpagetoday.com
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