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The Fatkins Diet

by | 11th, February 2004

‘IMAGINE if on her death bed Mary Whitehouse had been discovered with a stash of hard-core German porn, if Barbara Woodhouse had had convictions for animal cruelty, if Alan Carr had secretly been smoking 20 a day for the past 20 years.

Beware the ice in March!

Sadly, none of the above are true (although we still have our doubts about the exact contents of Mrs Whitehouse’s home movie entitled ‘Ron & I, Cromer June 1971’).

But yesterday spud-dodgers everywhere received a similarly shattering piece of news – diet guru Dr Robert Atkins was clinically obese when he died and was also suffering from severe heart disease.

‘FATKINS,’ says the Mirror triumphantly on its front page, adding that the 72-year-old ‘suffered the sort of ill-health critics of his high-fat food plan warned followers about’.

At his death last year (caused by a fall on an icy street), Atkins weighed 18st6lb and was classified as ‘morbidly obese’, a category of being overweight only one below ‘Feltz’.

All of this has come out after a medical report was leaked to the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine, which opposes the high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet.

And Dr Atkins’ widow Veronica last night hit out at the vegetarian doctors who leaked the report.

‘It is deplorable that unscrupulous individuals should try to use his history of heart disease to discredit his ideas about healthy eating,’ she tells the Mail.

It is, indeed. And even more deplorable that they should seek to undermine a multi-million dollar industry.

No wonder Colette Heimowitz, vice-president of education and research for Atkins, is telling Mirror readers this morning that they should stick with the programme.

‘Thirty years of clinical practice and 18 studies published in the last two years have proven,’ she says, ‘that, when followed properly, his diet lowers the risk of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and insulin resistance.’

Sadly, it doesn’t make you any steadier on your feet when walking over ice.’



Posted: 11th, February 2004 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink