Lap Band Billboards...

[Weas123 0]

I live in So Cal and I see these Lap Band Billboards ALL over the place that say, "Want to lose 50 pounds or more? Get the band!"

It's SO cheesy and cheap looking! It makes the band look like this stupid thin-quick scheme.

The Lap Band website obviously says, "for people who want to lose 100+ lbs." I can't believe this!

Edited January 4, 2010 by alex

[HeatherO 7]

Well, even if it is cheap and cheesy advertising . . . the band does work. I would rather see advertisements for the band which is successful for most than the latest over the counter pill remedies that you see constantly.

I just wish that it was a requirement that in order to advertise any weight loss anything that there had to be a study done under controlled conditions with full disclosure. Most weight loss options constantly thrown in our faces are not very useful.

[janesays 2]

I know, sooo cheesy! I get so embarrassed when I see one of those billboards, but I also get embarrassed when I am with friends (who don't know I have the band) and a LB commercial comes on TV or we are walking through the mall and walk past the lapband KIOSK (yes-- like next to the kiosks that sell cheap sunglasses or push you to try their lotion!)....

I think it's great that it gets the word out there, gets people to start researching it on their own later (I mean, I first found out about it a few years ago after a newspaper advertisement), but I guess I have a paranoia that all of a sudden, my friends will start talking about it. A commercial came on before I got the band (but after I had been to the info session and decided on having surgery) and my roommates started talking about it, saying the people on the commercial didnt even look that overweight and that they think it is the "easy way out"...... needless to say, I STILL haven't told them about it. It was hard the first month after surgery!!! But now its not a problem at all. It's crazy how little people notice the things closest to them...

[kiz 1]

It's funny you mentioned all the billboards in CA. I live on the east coast, and my husband was in L.A. last week on business. He commented on all the billboard advertising for lap bands and even mentioned the ones that said "if you want to lose 50lbs+..." It sounds like they must be everywhere.

[HeatherO 7]

I have never seen a billboard for this on the eastern side of the US. I think that it is just a matter of time though, because I do see plastic surgeons billboards.

In fact I can think of a specific one on a back country two-lane road that is really curvy. You come around this bend surrounded by trees close to the road and there is this huge billboard, right next to the road with a beautiful women extolling some kind of PS services.

It is rather shocking in that I love back country, curvy roads surrounded by trees and I don't really want advertising to encroach on natural beauty everywhere. I don't care about big highways as much, lol.

I was just thinking back . . . how did I first hear about the lapband . . . was it cheap advertising? I then realized it was a commercial with a women with short hair, maybe glasses who said her hunger was like a lion that was tamed or something like that. It wasn't cheap advertising, but it was advertising that caught my interest the first time and made me look into it further.

I am a frequent flyer on business . . . I also notice advertisements in those travel mag's on the airplanes. I remember a page full of curvaceous girlies provocatively dressed with admirable figures proclaiming they lost the weight with banding at some clinic or something somewhere in Texas, lol.

I guess advertising is growing, demand is growing and people are finding a way to battle obesity that actually works . . . it sounds good to me :0)

[Weas123 0]

I don't think it's doing a good job of "getting the word out," actually. I think it's misleading and discredits the people who have the band and are serious about it. It shows some woman on a scale with a quizzical look on her face like, "OMG I gained 4 pounds... how did this happen?" So, naturally, her plan is to lose 50 pounds is to get the band. Seriously... how much weight did you/ are you planning to lose? I'm guessing it was over 50. The website says, "for those who want to lose 100+ pounds." It's redicilous and I think cheapens the wonderfulness of the band. Yes, the band is wonderfully helpful and an amazing tool, but I don't like the way it's being portrayed here.

[TaraBell 0]

I live in Socal as well. I have seen several billboards. I listen to 102.7 Kiis FM and every other commercial seems to be about the Lap band.

[OneHotMama 0]

Those billboards are crazy!! Down the 605 Freeway in about a 2 mile stretch every single billboard is about the lap-band, one right after the other. I really don't think it will allow that many more people to get it as it is still more expensive then most people can afford. The thing for me is, I haven't told many people, maybe 4 and now with those popping up all over the place makes me even less likely to tell anybody. It is embarrasing, like having to claim a cracked out cousin! LOL

[GratefulHeart 0]

I live in Southern California too, and work just north of where the 605 and 10 freeways intersect...there are at least 4 or 5 of these lapband billboards on each side of the freeway there. I've seen them close to where I live at the 60 and 57 freeways, and expect to see more. The radio ads on KFWB are for the same group, and have actual patients talking about their experience. They are a little misleading in that they might imply that you can lose 50 pounds in 3 months - which I suppose is possible - but they never mention that the first part of having the lapband is sheer will power! :thumbup: Not until the fills start actually working does the lapband part really kick in. So I do find it misleading in that it might give the impression that it's not hard work that makes the lapband work, but that it's kind of a magic pill that just magically makes you lose enough weight to buy clothes one weekend and have them "fall off" the next.

On the other hand, I think I heard about the lapband from one of these billboards, and then asked my regular doctor about it. I then found this website (the first I subscribed to), as well as Obesity Help, and am actually grateful that I heard about Lapband somewhere, somehow. My husband is very much against gastric bypass but was persuaded that the lapband is safe, and we proceeded from there.

I guess if it gets the word out, it's good - and as long as everyone understands that it's their own responsibility to use it as a tool (not a magic solution or silver bullet), then it's probably less harmful than it is good. Everyone is responsible, after all, for their own actions, wherever they hear about the surgery. I'm just grateful that I heard about it mid-year 2008 to pursue it as an option. My blood pressure is now below normal, even though I'm still on medication, and I'm healthier than I've been in years. It also got me interested enough in lapband to think that I might actually succeed at losing weight this time.

While the billboards are WAY overkill (something like 5 of the same billboard within a one-mile span on the freeway), I'm grateful that I heard about it. I think the radio ads are actually more misleading.