Status: Real
On Google video there are a couple of commercials from the early 80s touting a
weight-loss product called Ayds. (An
Ayds radio commercial can be heard here.) The name of the product is so unfortunate, that it makes the ads sound like Saturday Night Live skits, with lines such as:
"Ayds helps you control your appetite so you lose weight... Why take diet pills when you can enjoy Ayds?... Ayds helps you lose weight safely and effectively!"
However, the ads are totally real, as was the product. Many of you might even remember it (though I don't). Ayds was an appetite-suppressant candy that came in chocolate, butterscotch and caramel flavors. During the 70s it was one of the top-selling weight-loss products. But then along came AIDS. In 1983
Time Magazine reported retailers as saying that
"the disease is not hurting the product... Ayds sales have never been better." However, by 1988 the Associated Press was reporting that Ayds sales were down 50 percent, because of the similarity between its name and AIDS. This prompted the maker of the candy to change its name to Diet Ayds. The AP reported
"Dep chairman Robert Berglass told the AP the company wanted to soften the name without completely changing it and losing identification. Sales were moving back up, he said, but he was reluctant to predict a full recovery." Evidently the candy didn't make a recovery, but I can't find any record of exactly when it ceased being sold.
Comments
V.Niani
This was the only diet product that worked for me
Believe me I tried several diet products with no results.
Someone please bring the AYDS diet candy back
There would be no over weight people and obesity will be controlled
There would be no need for all the surgery that people
Are having to lose weight. They are dying from this. So
Please bring it back
Waiting a reply
Anyhow, look at the 'SENSA' diet products, specifically the candy similarity can be found in the 'SENSA Chews', a 'somewhat chocolatey candy that helps reduce appetite' as part of a weight loss program. My wife had a co-worker tell her about the program, which includes 'salt-shaker-type-shakers' of diet suppressant you put on your food to help you reduce hunger and portion size. She said it works well for her, and is losing weight. A part of the plan is the chews. She complained 'they are chocolate in name only', so I asked if I could taste one, and the moment I did, the flavor from all those years ago haunted me. They do work, the chews are almost PURE FIBER (be ready when it hits, if you aren't constipated to start).
At least now at my decrepit old age, I know better than to chase them with half-a-box of ExLax chocolate chew tabs, too. Wow, what a miserable afternoon that was!