Ban the Sale of Toxic Weight-Loss and Muscle-Building Supplements to Youth

Youth health needs to be protected in America.

The unscrupulous sale of harmful dietary supplements for weight loss and muscle building as well as over-the-counter (OTC) diet pills is negatively affecting adolescents across America.

As youth today, we are growing up in a digital world that constantly bombards us with unrealistic and biased body and appearance ideals. This online influence can lead to very real offline threats to our health and the health of our friends. One of the ways that many youths experience this pressure is through the use of dietary supplements for weight loss and muscle building as well as OTC diet pills, which are widely available and used by people our age. We all know of friends, teammates, and peers who have easily purchased these products within their neighborhoods and online, often with little knowledge of the dangers they present.

Research supports the experiences that adolescents across the country encounter. Over 11% of teens report ever using dietary supplements for weight loss, nearly 35% of boys have used muscle-building protein powders or shakes, and about 17% of boys have used creatine, an under-regulated supplement, in hopes of building muscle. 

These products also disproportionately affect Latinx youth, who are 40% more likely to use over-the-counter diet pills than White teens (Vitagliano et al., 2022). Although the American Academy of Pediatrics has strongly discouraged the use of dietary supplements for weight loss and OTC diet pills, many teens still feel pressure to use them to achieve unrealistic and dangerous appearance goals. As a result, girls and young women who use weight-loss supplements and OTC diet pills are six times more likely to be diagnosed with an eating disorder within three years than nonusers (Levinson et al., 2020). Furthermore, a prospective cohort study on eating and activity shows that boys and girls who use protein powders and shakes are two times and five times more likely respectively to start using anabolic steroids or similarly dangerous products in just a few years (Nagata et al., 2022). The study further showed that nearly one third of adolescent boys and nearly one fifth of adolescent girls use protein powders/shakes, making it clear that action to discourage the use of harmful muscle-building products must be taken.

Weight-loss and muscle-building supplements and OTC diet pills are not harmless — in fact, these products can be deadly. Studies have found that supplements too often are laced with pesticides, heavy metals, anabolic steroids, and pharmaceuticals that can cause strokes, cancer, and severe liver injury, which sometimes require transplants or cause death. However, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does very little to regulate these products, leaving youth vulnerable. The dietary supplement industry has gone under-regulated for years, which has allowed the industry to prey on youth through deceptive marketing and social media influencers, selling us their lies and dangerous products.

It is clear that action must be taken to protect youth. A bill that restricts the sale of these harmful products to minors gives lawmakers the opportunity to take action to protect us, our teammates, our friends, and our peers from these harmful products.

Legislation on this child health issue has been filed in California, New York, Massachusetts, and a number of other states.

Please see below for the links to each piece of legislation:

California: Dietary supplements for weight loss and over-the-counter diet pills (AB-82)​

Massachusetts: An Act protecting children from harmful diet pills and muscle-building supplements (H.2215/S.1465)​

New York: Senate Bill S5823C/Assembly Bill A5610A

On behalf of the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders (STRIPED) Youth Corps, I urge you to sign this petition in support of this cause. Through this petition, we hope to bring to attention the need to protect the health of our nation’s children to lawmakers.

Want to begin advocating and directly impact your own community?

Check out the STRIPED Advocacy Toolkit.