Review finds almost 1 in 10 adolescents have used non-prescription weight loss products globally

Almost 1 in 10 adolescents globally have used ineffective and potentially harmful non prescribed weight loss products in their lifetime, with 2% using them in the previous week.

A review, of over 90 studies of 600,000+ participants, headed by Natasha Hall from Monash University's School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine and published in the JAMA Network Open has found that adolescent use of non-prescription weight loss products is 5.5% overall, 2% in the past week; 4.4% in the past month, 6.2% in the past year and 8.9% in their lifetime.

The authors caution against the long term consequences of these ineffective treatments.