Who Uses Meal Replacements?
The Atlanta-based Calorie Control Council’s 1993 survey of low-cal food and beverage usage and dieting, reported that 17% of a total 51 million dieters (or 8.7 million) used meal replacement products in early 1993, down sharply from the 31% of dieters in 1991 (16.4 million people). Unfortunately, this analysis of dieting by type method has not been updated by the Council. However, currently BestDietForMe.com/Marketdata estimates that there are 72 million dieters, and the share of all U.S. adults using meal replacements alone is about 5-7% (or 5 million people). Consumer Reports June 2002 survey on diet plans claims that 88% of the most successful dieters did NOT use meal replacement such as Slim-Fast. They also found that 6% of the successful dieters did use dietary supplements or over-the-counter weight loss aids (i.e. Metabolife, etc.). By contrast, Consumer Reports 1993 survey found that a much higher 24% of the dieters used meal replacements (second most popular method). Consequent
