America’s Diet Doctor
Usually sunny Southern California is arguably the nation’s capital of dieting, where shedding weight enables one to shed clothes. For self-conscious Californians -- all right, others too -- Robert Atkins’ diet was just what the doctor ordered: Eat all the meat, cheese and eggs you want. Avoid carbohydrates. You’ll lose weight. Guaranteed. What a deal! Sure, factions of freedom fries and doughnut lovers felt excluded. But for millions of Americans who covet the wisdom of age with the appearance of youth, the Atkins diet offered everything: weight loss and stuffing yourself.
Dr. Atkins is a patron saint for many youth-obsessed Americans doing all they can to hold back the years and the pounds. They’re giving up smoking, even drinking. They’re buying fashionable clothes to stretch and run in. They’re taking up swimming and doing the weightlifting thing. They’re swallowing vitamins and herbs, getting those eight hours of nightly slumber and donning sunblock like holy oil. They are monitoring bone density, cholesterol, heart rates. They are filtering home air. Portaging special water in plastic bottles. Above all, they are watching their weight. And Atkins made it all easier: less gain, no pain.
An Ohio native, Atkins became a cardiologist who developed a weight-loss program for his own patients in the early 1970s. It sounded perfect -- nearly unrestricted meat intake, just duck the carbs -- breads, pastas, some veggies and fruits. Advocates of Atkins swore by the seemingly indulgent regimen and produced baggy old clothes as proof of the pudding.
The doctor also knew the prescription for enduring commercial success in fad-conscious America: Generate enduring controversy. The American Medical Assn. obliged by denouncing his diet as “potentially dangerous” and “biochemically incorrect.” Recent research suggested little or no health compromise from the diet. But frankly, sterile studies and fatuous footnotes mattered less to American eaters than slipping into a once-too-tight pair of pants. Dieters continued consuming tons of Atkins books, keeping him on bestseller lists for years.
In fact, despite a 2002 heart ailment, Dr. Atkins, 72, was still walking to work regularly when he slipped April 8 and suffered an eventually fatal head injury. He leaves his wife, Veronica, his mother, Norma, and millions of slimmer mourners who may feel compelled now to down a doughnut or three in sorrow.