It's the season for holiday parties, and with them come the holiday pounds. But heading into the new year, many Canadians will be following the ionic-foot-scrubbed steps of Jennifer Podemski.
The Toronto-based actor had black gook sucked out through the pores of her feet during a detoxifying treatment she underwent last spring. The mineral wrap absorbed the grey sweat seeping through her skin. And then there were those colonics . . .
“It's pretty disturbing to see what is in your body and what your body can hold on to, the poisons that it has the potential to hold on to.”
But Ms. Podemski, 33, left behind more than just purged toxins when she ended her four-day stay at the Bancroft, Ont., Grail Springs Health Retreat and Wellness Spa — she also departed several pounds lighter and with two inches off her waist.
She acknowledges the chance to kick-start some weight loss was one reason she signed up for the detox package, but she also wanted to feel better: “I was drained, sluggish, tired, very stressed out.”
She's not alone.
While detoxification diets have been popular among middle-aged women looking to scour their innards and flush out the environmental toxins they say are polluting their bodies, younger and younger women are flocking to these same spas in hopes of shedding a few quick pounds. And this season may be one of the busiest yet.
For years, celebrities like Beyoncé Knowles and Angelina Jolie have been detox devotees, getting stomach-flattening colonics done before a shoot or to fit into that dress.
But this latest motivation to drop weight via detoxification is troubling many medical experts who say the procedures could be causing more harm than good.
Guests at these spas usually go without solid food for as long as a week, subsisting on juice fasts that are supposed to help them flush their systems of pollutants and preservatives while still getting their daily nutrients. They get foot scrubs, lymphatic massages and multiple colonics to cleanse their innards. They also down gallons of water and take multiple laxatives and herbal supplements.
Visili Kastaschuk, owner of the Abundant Life Wellness Spa in Lavoy, Alta., said that he has been seeing his clientele rapidly shift from women in their 40s to 60s looking to cleanse their bodies, to women in their 20s and early 30s looking to lose weight. During their 10-day stay, clients undergo between four and five colonics and leave, on average, eight to 20 pounds lighter.
“A number of young people, specifically ladies, they do look at the weight [loss] because it's a factor of pleasure and beauty. And when they come over, they say, ‘Wow, I'm really losing weight' and it gives them so much motivation,” said Mr. Kastaschuk, 28.
Anne Elliott, program director of Toronto-based Sheena's Place, a support group for people with eating disorders, said it's too early to gauge whether detox diets are going to be a mainstay in the diet world, but she's already beginning to see some “warning signs,” such as the shift in the age group seeking out detoxification.
“It's not surprising that younger women are being lured in,” she said. “It's not surprising because the culture is saturated with messages to be thin and women will do anything these days to achieve that. . . . It's an unhealthy marketing technique.”
Physicians are also becoming increasingly concerned about how it is being marketed as a weight loss tool. Some spa getaways in Canada cost upwards of $3,000.
Young, good-looking celebrities have been long-time proponents of the procedures, and that's put Peter Pressman, an internist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles, in a difficult position.
“We are increasingly concerned about it,” he said, adding he sees about six female patients a month suffering consequences of quick-fix diets gone bad.
