The Use of Appetite Suppressants Over the past two decades, Americans and much of the Western world have become obsessed with losing weight. Countless diets, weight loss strategies and gimmicks have been and remain on the market and cost Americans billions of dollars every year. The media perpetuates this ideal of thinness and so people continue in desperate attempts to make their bodies smaller. People have taken extreme measures such as stomach stapling, liposuction and starvation diets to try to shed excess weight. Many Americans are willing to do whatever it takes to appear a certain way, no matter the cost. Sometimes these costs outweigh the benefits of weight loss. Often, when people go on a diet and lose weight, they end up abandoning the diet and gaining the weight back. This leads to a perpetual cycle of yo-yo dieting. However, trying to lose weight remains a priority in many people's lives. One of the options that many people have adopted in an attempt to lose weight is the ingestion of various appetite suppressants. The logic behind this is that if you take an appetite suppressant, you won't feel hungry. Without hunger, the person ingests less food and by ingesting less food they lose weight. The concept is actually quite simple and has been around for many years. Hunger is “an animal's physiological need for food (Lasagna, p.132).” Appetite, on the other hand, is “the psychological motivation for food intake, which is independent of the individual's nutritional status (Lasagna, p.132)”. An appetite suppressant attempts to decrease a person's psychological motivation towards food, even though there may be a need to consume food for nutritional reasons. Phenylpropanolamine, ...... middle of paper ......rs. New York, NY Morgan, J. P. (1986). Phenylpropanolamine: a critical analysis of reported adverse reactions and overdose. Jack. K. Burgess, Inc. Fort Lee, NJFillmore, CM et al. (1999). Nutrition and Dietary Supplements, Phys Med Rehabil Clin N Am, 10, (3), 673-703.Silverstone, T. (1986). Clinical use of appetite suppressants, drug and alcohol dependence, 17, (2-3), 151-167. Wellman, P. J. (1990). A review of the physiological basis of the anorexic action of phenylpropanolamine, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 14 (3), 339-355. Greenway, F. L. (1992). Clinical trials with phenylpropanolamine: a meta-analysis, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 55, 203-205. Alger, S. et al. (1993). Effect of Phenylpropanolamine on Energy Expenditure and Weight Loss in Overweight Women, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 57, 120-126.