Thread: Inc Magazine: "Is the Atkins Brand Toast?"

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20031201/spotlight.html

Here's an interesting article. The part about how Atkins Nutritionals sabotaged the Atkins clinic in New York after Atkins death for brand name protection seems to make sense, knowing what we know of their low scruples.

The final paragraph: "Because the diet doc didn't really manage the products business, his loss is not acutely felt there. Sure, the patients he treated will miss him. But consumers will probably forget that Atkins was, in fact, a real person in time. For a brand, that's okay. "To be honest," says Roth, "I didn't even know that he was still alive when I read that he had died.""

Also, click on my snide reply comment about sugar alcohols at the bottom of the article.

**************
"Sometimes I think you have to march right in and demand your rights, even if you don't know what your rights are, or who the person is you're talking to. Then on the way out, slam the door."

Mornin, doc.

Thanks for this really interesting article. I had a feeling, when they suddenly announced the closing of the clinic, that there was some nasty in-fighting going on.

Re: Dr. A <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> "the products business can survive without him "because he was never very involved," Kabak says. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That seems true. Something weird happened to Dr. A in the late nineties. The "firebrand" Dr. Atkins of the thirty previous years (had he been paying any attention) would have gone into Atkins Nutritionals, turning over tables and driving the money changers out of his "temple."

(Disclaimer: Use of this analogy is not intended to be irreverent, or to attribute any kind of divinity to Robert Atkins, or to offend anyone. It was just the closest analogy that came to mind at this hour of the morning, in between snow shoveling excursions.)


Your comments to the article were right on, doc.

Maggie
5'1" ~~ Atkins since '98 (160+)
Maintaining nicely (110 +/-)
~~ Redhead until further notice!

Hey doc,

Thanks for the article link -- which saddens, but doesn't surprise me.
Your comments about the *Atkins* products was right on the money.

What a sad legacy for such a great man...

Summer


www.herstorygirl.com

Thanks for posting this, Doc. It substantiates the belief many of us hold that Dr. Atkins and the products bearing his name really have little else in common. I'm actually glad to hear the Atkins Nutritionals folks admit The Good Doctor was not really involved with that aspect of things - as Maggie has so aptly put it in previous posts, those products were an offshoot of "Bizarro Bob", not Dr. Atkins.

Since the lifestyle and the products are really two different (and often opposing) forces, it's really a shame that it all gets lumped together. A lot of people seem to have the idea that a low-carb lifestyle means substituting highly processed, expensive "low-carb" junk & convenience foods for the highly processed, expensive junk & convenience foods they are already overeating. This, of course, will yield disappointing results, and people will declare that they "tried the Atkins diet, and it didn't work". I have visions of people swarming the stores come January 1 to stock up on things for their new diet - "low carb" ice cream, candy, cookies, bread, pasta so they can start their New Year's "diet" by essentially making no changes except in the brand/type of fake food they're eating. People are simply trading in their boxes of low-fat cookies for boxes of low-carb cookies, and not grasping that concept that there will NEVER be cookies that will help you succeed at losing weight and gaining health.

(Sigh...) Didn't mean to get off on a tangent there...its just that, to my way of thinking, highly processed snack and convenience products that push sugar alcohols are going to cause a lot of people to fail, and thus dismiss low-carbing as ineffective, thus missing out on all the benefits they could be enjoying. And all the while, they'll be unfairly criticizing the plan and making it harder for "real" low-carbing to keep gaining momentum.

I dunno, I guess maybe I've become a bit of a snob about this, but it really bugs me. I'm glad to see more acceptance and recognition of controlled-carbing, but am afraid it's being sabotaged by the glut of new products. Successful low-carbing does not require one single special product of any kind. I want to see restaurants offer a low-carb menu offering broccoli instead of potatoes and chicken with no breading, not "low-carb" pasta and cake.

To me, the "low-carb aisles" of the grocery store will always be the meat & produce departments. I think the wave of pre-fab low-carb products has got "Snackwell's Syndrome" written all over it!

Sky
Atkins since 8/02
186/144/under 150

Sky, this is so true. My son decided to try LC eating, and before long told me it just "didn't work" for him. Last time I visited, he offered me the LC items he'd bought that he wasn't using. Since I'd given he and his fiancee baking tips, recipe ideas, told them about DaVinci syrups, etc., I had visions of a bounty of almond flour, protein powders, SF syrups and condiments, etc.

Instead, they filled up a bag with candy bars, bagged candies, cookies, and crackers, all prominently displaying their low carb labeling. Sigh.

Aderyn