Whatever Happened to Dr. Bob?

You remember Dr. Bob. Doctor Robert Atkins, the diet guru who only a couple of years ago was such a high profile guy. You couldn't turn on a chat show or open a magazine without seeing him and his theories. Now you never hear his name.

The sad truth is that he died about two years ago. He died just at the time that his once-much-heralded diet theories were falling into disrepute. And as if dying wasn't enough, the coroner regrettably leaked information that at his death Dr. Bob was significantly overweight.

At that time, the Atkins empire was enormous: They produced their own line of foods, had their own glossy magazines and cable shows, and were franchising and licensing all manner of health-related products and activities.

What happened to Dr. Bob and the Atkins movement is typical of any fad: A sensational start and explosive growth, followed by a fast decline and eventual obscurity. The basic idea behind the Atkins diet was very sound. However, Dr. Bob oversimplified matters in order to encourage public acceptance and excitement, and took a valid idea to an absurd conclusion.

Dr. Bob was a cardiologist who had had a successful, if unspectacular, career as a heart doctor. Anyone dealing with cardiac disease is aware of the importance of weight control and dietary caution in the prevention and treatment of coronary artery disease. At the time, there was an enormous obsession with fats, and the public was being bombarded with anti-fat discussion and advice.

It was, and remains, very complicated. There are the mono-saturated fats, the partially saturated fats, the polyunsaturated fats, the trans fats, the hydrogenated fats, the good guy cholesterol, the bad guy cholesterol, the Saddam Hussein-Robert Mugabe-Adolf Hitler cholesterol. It was all so scary and confusing. Dairy products were regarded as dangerous, if not poisonous; seriously depressed people were having a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk at bedtime, thinking that this was the way to end it all.

It is unarguable that a diet rich in fats is threatening to your health. But cooks were trying to create an entire meal for four people with a teaspoonful of vegetable oil, and it didn't taste that good. The truth is we have been educated to enjoy the taste of food cooked in fats, and find them appetizing and satisfying, but there is a risk. Fats have two dangerous effects. First, they are very high in calories: A gram of fat contains nine calories, compared to only four calories in carbohydrates or protein. So if you eat a diet rich in fat you are also eating a very high calorie diet. Second, some fats are more dangerous than others: Animal fats encourage the growth of plaques in the arteries that can lead to heart attacks and strokes. Vegetable oils, such as olive or safflower oil, do not have this effect. So it is appropriate for people to be careful about both the quantity and the type of fat they consume.

What Dr. Bob noticed was that while we had been trying to squeeze every last drop of fat out of our diet, we had been filling our plates with – guess what – carbohydrates. Dr. Bob decided to make carbohydrates more sinister by dropping the name that reminded people of chemistry class, and calling them "carbs." We were lowering the portions of fatty food, cutting the fat off the meat, using vegetable margarine instead of butter, and behaving sensibly in this regard. But we were piling bread, potatoes, pasta, and rice onto our plates, believing that carbohydrates in any quantity was harmless. We cut a couple of grams of fat off the steak, saving 30 calories, and then piled about an extra hundred calories of starch onto our plates. So, paradoxically, we were all cutting down on fats, yet all getting fat.

Dr. Bob told us what we should do: Cut down on the carbs, which was good advice. Unfortunately, he must have thought that this was not a sensational enough message to get him invited onto Oprah. So he went one step further and said: Forget about fats, they don't matter! Eat all the greasy pork chops, the hamburgers, the dairy products that you want, but keep those evil carbs off your plate, it's the potatoes that are killing you. This was obviously fallacious, but millions of people believed him.

He had a good run. For several years it was all the rage, but then the studies came out which showed what you would expect. People did lose weight initially, but their ability to keep it off was no better than with any other approach and the levels of the dangerous fats in their blood were a little worse.

Everybody is looking for the big secret to weight loss, so here it is: There is no big secret. Weight loss requires determination, discipline, an exercise program, and a balanced diet that is modest in the amount of both fat and carbohydrate content. Sorry, Dr. Bob. Nice try, but no Nobel Prize.

Be sure to pick up a copy of my soon-to-be bestseller, "Doctor Mike's Shichuan Huo Guo Diet: How to become slim, suave, sophisticated, and a sensuous sex symbol in 60 days."

For more on diets, see our Dietary Lifestyles series, Insect Eaters!, and Would you Like a Little Soil With That?

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