The Federal Trade Commission handed down a new set of guidelines on Monday that remove the words "results not typical" from advertising. In one fell swoop, all those ads that we've been living with for years are gone. For Valerie Bertinelli and a host of other celebrity weight-loss endorsers, this might mean that they're out of a job.
The last time the rules were updated was 1980. During that time, the diet industry flourished under the "results not typical" tagline, not revealing what the weight-loss superstar being portrayed actually did to achieve her fab new bod.
From now on, it has to be spelled out in one of two ways. Either the advertiser can say, "Ms. Glamazon lost 50 pounds in six months by going to the gym six days a week, doing tons of cardio and taking our product." Or Ms. Glamazon can strut her stuff on TV or in a magazine, and the advertiser must say something to the effect of, the average person loses 15 pounds in six months on this product.
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