To encourage New Year's Resolution makers to get healthy and lose weight, Rite Aid (NYSE: RAD) is offering customers expert advice in printed guides, online resources and in face-to-face conversations with a Rite Aid pharmacist - all for free during the month of January.

It's estimated that 50 percent of Americans will make resolutions this year, and one of the most common of these is to get healthy or to lose weight. Yet, consumer polls show that more than 75 percent of survey respondents don't make it three months into their weight-loss resolutions; a third don't last 30 days.

This is often because dieters declare a goal without creating concrete steps to accomplish it, which can set the stage for failure. Rite Aid is giving its customers help on their journey including:

  • Twelve-page "Weight Management" guides - Special sections include common health conditions caused by excess weight, a closer look at the childhood obesity epidemic, meal-planning suggestions, and simple tips to shed pounds including calorie guides and exercise strategies to bust through common excuses to exercising.
  • Online resources - Support at www.riteaid.com includes electronic body mass index (BMI) calculator, recipes, healthy snack suggestions and a food label "wizard" to help interpret nutrition labels on many common foods.
  • Expert advice from Rite Aid pharmacists - As a trusted and accessible member of most Americans' health care teams, pharmacists are knowledgeable on topics including recent trends in drug therapy for weight management, common dieting myths, basic lifestyle tips, and medications used to control weight-related diseases such as heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

Rite Aid Corporation is one of the nation's leading drugstore chains with approximately 4,700 stores in 31 states and the District of Columbia and fiscal 2011 annual revenues of $25.2 billion. Information about Rite Aid, including corporate background and press releases, is available through the company's website at www.riteaid.com.

Rite Aid Corporation
Eric Harkreader, 717-975-5713
eharkreader@riteaid.com