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Hoodia in the Media
The current Hoodia craze can probably trace its beginnings to November 21, 2004, when CBS’s “60 Minutes” did a
program about Hoodia. In this program, correspondent Lesley Stahl traveled to Africa to try Hoodia gordonii for
herself. She visited the Kalahari Desert of South Africa and spoke with a San Bushman. She then tried a piece of
the Hoodia plant. According to Stahl, her hunger was suppressed, as she "wasn’t even hungry all day." She concluded
that natural fresh Hoodia probably did work.
If you browse Hoodia sales websites, you will find that they all proudly quote “As seen on 60 Minutes!” They often
quote Stahl as to the effectiveness of Hoodia. What they conveniently forget about is the second part of the
program, where Stahl interviewed Dr. Richard Dixey, the head of the pharmaceutical company trying to develop
Hoodia. In his opinion, the majority of products out there claiming to contain Hoodia in fact contain a tiny
fraction of the active ingredient.
The “60 Minutes” episode was inspired by a BBC correspondent who traveled to South Africa a year earlier to
investigate and sample Hoodia. He tried the plant and also reported that his decreased his appetite. This article
is often quoted on websites fro products claiming to contain Hoodia. Thus these two articles, which featured
nothing more than anecdotal evidence and interviews with people employed by companies trying to develop Hoodia
products, started the Hoodia craze.
The existence of these two reports was enough to spawn a series of articles in newspapers around the world
describing the apparent miracle plant of the Bushmen of South Africa which would be the next big cure for obesity.
The hype quite simply overran the evidence. Pushed by the marketing of Hoodia-based nutrition supplements, Hoodia
achieved a brand awareness that far outshone any proven ability to aid in weight loss.
This of course led to the next wave of articles, decrying the great Hoodia scam. People started investigating
several of the so-called Hoodia nutritional supplements, and found that those companies couldn’t begin to justify
the claims they were making. This led to the cautionary articles, which mix testimonials both for and against
Hoodia supplements.
The greatest benefit of Hoodia seems to be to two groups, the nutritional supplement companies who sell it as a
magical weight loss cure to anyone they can find, and the media, which is provided with a seemingly never-ending
series of topics. It seems that our obsession with out appearance, combined with the ever increasing rates of
obesity, continue to drive the search for stories of miracle cures. Hoodia is simply a great story.
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