You Knew That Flat Tummy Tea Was a Scam, Right?

Jumping right into it:

“Detox is a scam,” Louis J. Papa, M.D., an internist and clinical professor of medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, tells Yahoo Beauty. “You can’t detox your body. It has a very sophisticated system that has developed over millions of years to filter out what we don’t need. Detox sounds good but it’s not something that can be done.” [source]

Just to remind you, there’s no such thing as “detoxification” that can be done through using something like “tea.” If your body can’t “detoxify” itself, you’d be dead already. And, if something was so toxic that it’d cause consequences before it even reached your liver, then… you’d be dead already. Your liver is that efficient.

Lots of people go on weight loss cleanses, or go on cleanses with the sole purpose of losing weight. Some people obsess so much over the scale, that they believe getting a colonic – basically getting your insides power washed with a hose inserted up inside of you – is how you achieve success. Some people go on “master cleanses” believing that the bulk of the weight they lose will be the equivalent of long-standing change, will result in lifelong benefits, and will ultimately turn into lifelong detoxification.

Except, permanent weight loss isn’t a result of a 3-, 10-, or 30-day cleanse; going on a detox – no matter the duration – won’t teach you what you need to know about engaging with healthier habits in the real world; and, if you ultimately only do detoxes as a way to atone for the previous weekend’s sins, you’re sabotaging yourself anyway. The problem isn’t the fact that you “detox” to feel better – the problem is the habits you feel like you need to atone for.

Excerpted from Detoxification 101: What Is It, Why It’s Useless, and How to Do It Effectively | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

It’s totally okay to want to lose weight, but understand: when you talk about losing weight, you need to be specific. You want to burn fat. Not “finally poop out all that stuff you ate and can’t get out of you because you don’t eat enough fiber.”  If you want to actually flatten your tummy? That’s going to call for the burning of belly fat, something that the tea simply cannot do.

Furthermore, “finally pooping” isn’t the same as “detoxifying” in any meaningful sense. If you have something to actually poop out, that means your body has already done all the detoxifying. Now, you just have to empty your colon.

“Flat tummy tea” can help you do that—finally poop out things that you haven’t been able to get out—but in a way that encourages diarrhea (and, by extension, dehydration), cramps, bloating, headaches, and even potentially cause damage to your metabolism.

“Fit tea” type tea mixes are all blends of typical traditional black teas, combined with other random “flavor” enhancers, both natural/unadulterated and artificial, all intended to enhance one primary ingredient: senna. Senna, a cinnamon derivative, is an herb with natural laxative capabilities. It doesn’t prevent your body from absorbing calories, it doesn’t force food out of your body before you process and absorb it; it only clears out your intestines in order to make space for the food that you eventually will eat.

The only reason you even know about these flat tummy teas and fitteas is because of, well…:

FitTea is finally coming under fire with the National Advertising Division (“NAD”) for consistently enlisting influencers to promote its weight loss tea products and failing to ensure that such individuals disclose that they were paid to do so. According to the NAD, a division of the Better Business Bureau (“BBB”), tasked with “reviewing national advertising for truthfulness and accuracy, and fostering public confidence in the credibility of advertising,” Arizona-based FitTea reposted numerous Instagram endorsements on its own site, under the heading “Results and Reviews,” in violation with the BBB’s advertising regulations. [source]

They pay people to promote without telling you they were paid to do it.

According to the NAD’s decision (#6042), which was released on December 28, 2016, the organization “appreciates the advertiser’s changes to the endorsements and testimonials on its website” but criticized its ongoing practice of failing to disclose paid-for posts in connection with its products. Additionally, the NAD criticized the content of some FitTea’s paid for endorsements, namely ones that assert that consuming FitTea helps to promote with weight loss.

The NAD decision states, “While the diet and exercise program that FitTea promotes to customers who purchase FitTea might result in weight loss or other weight-related health improvements, there was no evidence in the record that drinking FitTea by itself will boost metabolism, boost immunity, burn fat or otherwise result in weight loss.”

Finally, the NAD took issue with FitTea’s practice of posting authentic consumer in conjunction with paid-for endorsements, thereby making it difficult – if not impossible – for consumers to distinguish between the two types of postings. According to the NAD’s decision: “It is important for consumers to be able to distinguish between independent reviews and testimonials or endorsements used as advertising for a product.” [source]

Basically, they’re breaking the law by paying people to promote the product without being upfront and honest about the fact that they’re being paid. People choose to hide the fact that they’re being paid to promote something because they think it makes the endorsement more authentic and less “you’re only putting this in front of me because you got paid to do it.”

If you go into your local supermarket, saunter over to the tea section, and find the “dieter’s tea” underneath the Lipton’s, guess what? You will have already found the exact same thing as what’s found in the Flat Tummy Teas and FitTeas of the world. Furthermore, you’ll only pay $2.99 for it—not $25.

But the 99-cent tea in the grocery store isn’t paying 70-80,000 dollars to a Kardashian to promote it.

Listen. Laxative teas have their own risks and concerns, but I can understand the interest if you aren’t pooping regularly. There are so many ways to infuse your diet with fiber, that you never ever need to visit the tea aisle. Infuse your diet with fresh fibrous fruits like grapefruit and mango and berries, or eat dark and leafy greens like collard greens, and you’ll be well on your way. Furthermore, you won’t be giving money to a company that’s deliberately and illegally deceiving you. You’ll be better for it.