Okay. Trained, showered, bed, time to set the scene.
What is Juice Plus?
Juice Plus (JP) is a Multi-Level-Marketing company that sells products they claim to be the "next big thing" to fruit and vegetables. These products come as capsules, shakes, gummy sweets, etc. Their target market are average people who may have various health-based goals such as losing weight, building muscle or strengthening their immune system. As most people these days are less likely to eat fruit or vegetables, JP try to cash in by acting as a substitute (or supplement) into people's diets.
There are plenty of informative websites out there that have researched JP's products, and outwith studies funded by themselves to support their products, they largely call into question their effects. It appears that contrary to being the next best thing to fruit and veg, they're largely a waste of money. For much cheaper, you can get more vitamins from a typical multivitamin or plenty of vitamins, nutrients and fibre from fruit and veg.
Products aside, there is an ethical issue with JP too. Like all MLM companies, a huge slice of their income comes from the distributors they recruit to sell the products for them. For a £50 start-up fee, people with no expertise, experience or even basic knowledge in health, fitness and nutrition can become distributors and sell these products to the wider world.
Distributors can also earn money by recruiting other people into the franchise and the sales that their "lower line" "colleagues" make. Thus, in what would be a bizarre business model for legitimate businesspeople, they are motivated to recruit more "team members" into the business for commission. What this means, of course, is that the more people recruited into the firm, the more customers who become businesspeople, the more competition for remaining business in local catchment areas, and the more money made by people at the top. Does that sound familiar? It should, because JP is a typical pyramid scheme that is legal only because they have products to sell unlike classic scams.
What's the beef with this one distributor? Who is she?
"Jenny" is someone I know of who I used to have on Facebook. She has a long history of trying (and failing) to become fit and healthy by going to the gym, only to ruin it by overeating. Her diet has always been horrendous, she clearly has no clue about calorie counting, and as a result has always been overweight. By my reckoning I believe she is now obese based on her most recent photographs.
Her name isn't actually Jenny, but for the sake of anonymity I am calling her Jenny out of respect for her right to privacy and freedom from personal attacks and harassment.
I have no personal issue with her, I am sure that JP aside, Jenny is a lovely person. Unfortunately, she is a perfect example of the kind of person who can easily be manipulated into scams. Since she added me to her community page, I have been astonished with the utter rubbish she posts to sell products. Clearly, as mentioned above, she has no clue about health, fitness or nutrition. She simply sees what other distributors post, and runs with it.
JP do not care about the quality of their distributors. There is no screening process. As a result, people like Jenny, who are clearly not fit (literally) to advise people on healthy life choices, are recruited into the firm. As such, we live in a crazy world where fat, unhealthy people are selling health-based products to the public. And that's just sad.
Why this blog?
So many crazy claims have been made that I felt compelled to start documenting these incidents. I have already had to report Jenny to the Advertising Standards Authority once for false advertising (stay tuned for a future post), which they acted upon, and it's funny seeing her posts get hardly any "likes" (apart from other distributors) and her followers slowly go down day by day, week by week. Clearly very few people care about her sales.
Jenny also acts as inspiration for my own personal fitness journey. As documented in previous blog posts - I think - I myself was at one stage very overweight, probably borderline obese. For the past year and a month, I have gone on my own journey of losing weight, building muscle and tweaking my diet to ensure the right amount of calories depending on muscle gain or weight loss. Apart from taking BCAAs and drinking protein shakes - that are far cheaper, and that I don't worship as "miracle products" - I have never taken a single shake or capsule from a company like JP. It's therefore a slap in the face that someone like Jenny thinks she is in any position to advise people on healthy life choices. How about sorting yourself out first before worrying about others? Maybe then you would attract some business if people saw your wonder products work on you, yourself.
I don't know how often I'll post stuff, but whenever I feel like it, I will. Stay tuned...
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