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New Bills To Ban Diet Pill Sales to Minors

Sept. 19, 2022

Lawmakers are seeking to limit the sale of diet pills and weight loss supplements to children with the introduction of new bills in California and New York.

The bills in California and New York would prohibit retailers from selling dietary supplements for weight loss and over-the-counter diet pills to anyone under the age of 18 without a prescription. Such supplements and pills aren’t required to be reviewed or approved by the Food and Drug Administration and the federal agency has warned the public of the dangers of certain weight loss products, highlighting contaminated pills that have been tainted with dangerous ingredients.

The diet pill industry in the United States is largely unregulated.

For More Information About The OTC Diet Pills Market

Marketdata’s biennial report: “The U.S. Weight Loss & Diet Control Market” covers the retail or OTC diet pills market in depth. See: www.marketdataenterprises.com for Table of Contents or to order the report (report number FS67, FS62 – 2022 status report ).

These appetite suppressants have long been a significant part of the total weight loss market. DIY (do-it-yourself) dieters represent the overwhelming share (about 80-85%) of all dieters and these pills are easily obtained, inexpensive, and don’t require a trip to the doctor to get a prescription. Therefore, they are very popular as a quick weight loss method. Many dieters purchase these diet pills from multi-level marketers or online via mail order/internet companies. In fact, 76% of sales come from these companies versus only 24% via traditional retailers.

Marketdata analysts estimate the OTC diet pill sales in the U.S. amounted to $2.08 billion in 2020 and 2021.

Competitors in this segment of the market have tweaked their ingredients shrewdly to avoid regulation, and are savvy marketers. Many of them are herbal or so-called “natural” products. In the wake of the ban of ephedra in the United States, a lot of the products claim to use the plant Hoodia, or green tea or even HCG drops. The trend lately seems to be using a combination of pure green coffee bean extract, green tea, bitter orange, and other ingredients such as caffeine. These include various pills, powders, measured calorie products and synthetic sweeteners.

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