Fat Boy Slim

TALK about cutting someone down to size. It may be almost a year since Robert Atkins died, but the anti-industry he spawned — as distin...

TALK about cutting someone down to size. It may be almost a year since Robert Atkins died, but the anti-industry he spawned — as distinct from the Atkins industry — is alive and well. So long, its source of sustenance was his life’s work; now it’s feeding on his death.

Or more correctly, the manner of his death. In April 2003 the official word was that the doctor, 72, slipped on ice, bumped his head, was taken to hospital, and soon left for the Great Pizzeria in the Sky. It had little or no impact on the multi-billion dollar Atkingdom; the diet plan continued to attract new followers, imitators, websites, e-zines, recipe books, cooking principles. The success had taken its time coming — the idea had been rejected outright when Atkins first proposed it in the 1960s and staged a diffident comeback as late as 1997 (with Dr Atkins’ New Diet Revolution) — but the sheer volumes appeared to be making up for lost time.

Until earlier this week, when The Wall Street Journal added fat to the fire by publishing hitherto unknown details of the doctor’s death. The data came to them courtesy Richard Fleming, a Nebraska doctor, Atkins critic and vegetarian sympathiser. Late in December 2003, Fleming made a direct request for the classified data to the New York City medical examiner’s office, ignoring the fact that such access was strictly limited to family and the treating doctor. Fleming claimed to be neither, but the gamble paid off when a lowly clerk mailed him the details. The WSJ quoted the medical reports to say that Atkins had a history of heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension.

Story continues below this ad

For low carb-high protein-fed Atkinsmen — numbering 25 million in the US alone, by some counts — it was news difficult to digest, to say the least. In these days of increased food consciousness, the critics didn’t even have to draw the match-the-following lines between Atkins’ reported health complaints and the bacon-butter-sausage-nuts recommended by his weight-loss plan before the media upped the ante. Atkins’ widow Veronica led the counter-charge, claiming her husband was neither overweight (Dr Stuart Trager of the Atkins Physicians’ Council attributed 63 lb gained in nine days in hospital to ‘‘fluid retention’’) nor suffered any diet-related complications.

But it’s a blow that the Atkins industry may find difficult to fend off. The diet owes much — if not all — of its popularity to the fact it doesn’t bad-mouth all-American favourites such as steaks and fry-ups in favour of rabbit food; at the same time, it hasn’t been so successful in conveying the integrity of exercise and healthy fats to the plan. All of which left it open to pot shots from the likes of Dean Ornish — himself no mean player in the heal-thyself market — and the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine, which Fleming is allied with.

Now, though, the backlash is anticipated from the faceless, nameless millions who make Atkins the force it is today. It may be a long time before the groundswell takes shape, but the Atkins industry is already in defence overdrive. They know, better than most, that food fads are not something to be played with.