Healthy Living Sucks Like a Tapeworm

photo by: Cathy’s Voice Now

When my grandmother was a young girl, she saw weight-loss pills in a store window. Take the green pill to start losing weight. Take the red pill when you reach your ideal weight and want to stop.

The green will was a tape worm.

The red pill killed the tape worm.

How did she know the green pill was a tapeworm? Some of the green pills had hatched early and were squirming around the display window!

For those of you fortunate enough to wonder exactly what a tapeworm is, I will spare you a creative commons image. That’s what Google is for. Tapeworms are parasites, usually accidently ingested in egg or larval form through contaminated food or water. They attach to your intestine and siphon off your calories and nutrients. So you can Eat! Eat! Eat! & Always stay thin!

photo by: orionpozo

And if you believe this add, with “No Ill Effects.” Aside from weight loss, vitamin deficiency, weakness, nausea, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. They forgot to mention those side effects at the end of the commercial in a rushed and slightly-mumbled monotone, I suppose.

The most creepy part about the tapeworm diet? People still do it. Yeah, I’m about to vomit appalled too. According to trusted sources The Tyra Banks Show, the tapeworm diet is making a comeback. The US holds no statistics about how many people knowingly infect themselves with tapeworms. Probably because it’s illegal. Because it’s dangerous. And disgusting.  Tyra claims that thousands of people “want tapeworms to live in their body.” Whatever that means.

If you want to waste 25 minutes of your life have 25 minutes to spare, you can watch Tyra’s episode about the revival of the tapeworm diet. On it, a giggling idiot woman interested in ingesting a tapeworm to lose 10 pounds claims she is “willing to do anything to lose those extra pounds.”

Are you kidding me? I don’t even have a smart-ass, crossed out response for that. A person willing to infect themself with a parasite that will make them violently ill. Over ten pounds. Apparently “anything” doesn’t include moderating her calorie intake, eating fresh and unprocessed foods, and incorporating modest exercise.

The tapeworm diet, along with other quick-fix, extreme “diets,” might make you unwell on some level drop weight.  However, unless you address the lifestyle, eating, and exercise habits  that created the problem, the pounds will return. Usually with more of their poundy friends.

I will dismount my soapbox now, before I scare all you lovely readers away with preaching hurt myself. Eating healthy and working out sucks like a tapeworm does. Don’t believe those shiny fitness magazines that say otherwise. But we must always remember that health includes much more than only the number on the scale.

Sources: “Tapeworm Infection Symptoms” by Mayo Clinic

Ever heard of the tapeworm diet? Does the concept make you feel nauseous and give you night terrors? Ever have an experience with an “extreme” diet? What were your results (positive or negative)?