The Diet Riot Calms Down © VR |
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| After the low-carb breakdown, consumers are eschewing diet programs and going their own way. Will the next Robert Atkins please stand up? |
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In a 2003 story on diet programs in Vitamin Retailer, the best-seller lists were full of diet books by everyone from Dr. Phil to the late Robert Atkins. Two years later, in early November 2005, The New York Times non-fiction best-seller list featured The South Beach Diet in the top 15. And that’s it, though healthy lifestyle books by Kevin Trudeau and Andrew Weil have prominent positions. Meanwhile Dr. Phil is being sued over his book and the low-carb lifestyle has collapsed. Is this the end of diet programs? Have Americans given up all hope? Have publishers decided that celebrity biographies and romance novels are where the real money is? Being an Individual The downfall of the low-carb diet has made the general public a little skeptical toward diet programs, said Maryellen Molyneaux, president of the Natural Marketing Institute, the natural market research firm in Harleysville, PA. Now, Americans are individualizing their diet programs to fit their needs, instead of following an organized diet program like The South Beach Diet. “They tend to move away from quick weight loss to more long-term management efforts, and you see that [in] a lot of different ways,” she said. Molyneaux pointed to NMI’s Health & Wellness Trends Database for support. In 2002, 76 percent found weight loss products to be credible; that figure plummeted to 60 percent in 2004. “They’ve lost trust,” explained Jay Robb, founder of Jay Robb Enterprises (Carlsbad, CA) and author of The Fruit Flush 3-Day Detox and The Fat Burning Diet: Accessing Unlimited Energy for a Lifetime. “Then Atkins imploded so fast, so they’re becoming gun shy, but the desire is still there.” Consumers always “go back to what they know,” Molyneaux said: a balanced diet with flexibility. That’s why programs such as Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers are still in business, she noted, even as trendy diets come and go. Even the reorganized Atkins Nutritionals (Melville, NY) has gotten onboard with this consumer mindset, stressing the overall nutrition of its products. Beth Neumann, group marketing manager at Atkins, said the company’s “products always had superior nutrition.” Its new packaging, advertising, and Website (www.atkins.com) are attempts to make that better known among customers. “The truth is low-carb is an important heritage for the brand, but really [what] is so important is consumers are following their individual nutritional philosophies,” said Neumann, admitting the company is “aligning” itself with this new dieting paradigm. “Low-carb is a piece of that; people have changed the way they think of nutrition.” Added Neumann, “We’re coming out as a stronger, more flexible company focused on health and nutrition.” Mitch Skop, director of new product development at Pharmachem Laboratories (Kearny, NJ), the company behind Phase 2 starch blocker and other ingredients, said there is a movement away from diets—many of which he describes as “fads”—and toward healthy eating. “Sensible diet, combined with supplementation with ingredients that are clinically proven, is a concept that could work for consumers for the long term—and be successful in the marketplace,” Skop said. “To make this work, we are continually educating the consumer about healthy eating, and investing in research to show our ingredients are effective and safe.” Retailers interviewed for this article also noticed that most of their customers are taking matters into their own hands, though their intentions might be misguided. “They’re looking for a magic bullet, a quick fix solution,” sighed Ron Rambadt, owner of Nature Works in Winter Garden, FL. “The other [thing] they’re looking for is something to replace ephedra; people are still hung up on that.” Rambadt said other customers, inspired by Trudeau’s bestseller Natural Cures, make the commitment for long-term changes too quickly. “They’re changing the whole way they eat and buy food, giving up their favorite foods and switching. If they’re a meat lover, they go totally to vegetables, instead of going a little bit slower and making sure that they’re going to stay with it.” For Len McNelly, manager of Rios Pharmacy, Nutrition and Medical Products in Morton, PA, the decline of low-carb has “shifted more sales into diet pills, fat burners. There are not as many people looking for food type products. Meal replacements are still a huge chunk of sales.” McNelly said hoodia gordonii and ephedra—the store sells dosages of 10 mg or lower if a customer is over 18, fills out a form, and has a driver’s license—are big sellers. As for diet programs, “not a huge majority [are] on one particular diet; it’s scattered. Some people do South Beach, there’s talk about Weight Watchers, but there’s not talk on one particular diet, whereas last year everyone and their mother was on Atkins.” “How Do You Sell Less?” Books extolling diet programs will never go away, said Norman Goldfind, publisher, Basic Health Publications, Inc. (Laguna Beach, CA). “It seems every year, every spring, many diet books are issued in that time of the year. It never seems to change. Everyone is looking for a quick fix. “You’re always going to see books on diet, [and] sooner or later someone will come up with one that has a different slant or spin that will strike a nerve and will become a best seller,” Goldfind added. “What that is, I wish I could predict—I’d have someone write it for me.” The time isn’t right for a new, radical diet plan to take off where Atkins left off, Molyneaux said. “I don’t think it would be acceptable for any diet company to say we have something brand new…Consumers are not ready, they’re not ready to believe it.” Not only would the diet have to catch the population’s attention, so would the author. “There’s no question that a lot of these diet books are tied to the personality of the author,” said Goldfind, who’s been in publishing for over 40 years. “We’re always looking for authors who can capture that magic. Don’t ask me to describe that magic, but that’s often what happens.” Goldfind cited Suzanne Somers as an example of an author providing a catalyst for a book’s success. Somers is not known for having a medical background or writing skills, he noted, but her persona goes a long way in selling her books. Years ago, Goldfind was a victim of this principle, when he published a diet book he felt had the potential to sell very well until he met the author. “When he walked in, I said, ‘I’m in trouble.’ The guy was overweight,” the publisher remembered. “How do you put him in an ad or on television to promote a diet book? He immediately loses credibility.” The book sold below Goldfind’s expectations. Robb felt his products sold better when he included his image on the packaging. “The more we personified the product, the more it built the trust factor,” he said. “There was a real man doing this…who’s been doing it from the get-go and has his hands in there moving things around.” For a diet plan to sweep the nation, Molyneaux said a company has to “incorporate [positive] lifestyle changes into their products, into their programs, and associate their brands” with those benefits. “If, for example, it was our brand that you bought that not only gave you this benefit,” she added, “but also provided the tools, or information, or encouragement, or coaching, the brand that…helped me to make these other lifestyle changes, that’s the brand I’ll credit with the success in my weight loss. It’s a very difficult position to achieve, but it can be done.” Robb said most of a diet program’s success comes from praise spread though word of mouth. “I believe that’s how Atkins did it two times around, once in 1972 for three million, and he did it again in the mid 1990s,” he said. “How did he do it? Quick results and an easy and simple program to follow.” The biggest challenge may be to convince consumers to “want to reduce their portion,” Molyneaux said. “How do you make that part of your product line and make it palatable and make it part of your program and get consumers behind it and make a success out of it?” she said. “With enough money you can do anything, but it’s about selling less. How do you sell less? If you’ve got the answer, you’ve got the answer to weight loss.” Sticking to the Plan Today’s prominent diet plans are not going for the quick strike solution, instead offering a sensible way to approach weight loss. One example is the Body-for-LIFE program offered in the book of the same name by Bill Phillips, founder of EAS (Golden, CO). Gretchen Ferraro, the director of the Body-for-LIFE program, describes it as a “lifestyle.” “Body-for-LIFE has always advocated balanced nutrition, such as equal portions of healthy carbohydrates and lean sources of protein, as well as vegetables, fruits, and essential fats,” she said. “We don’t ask people to cut out entire food groups or drastically cut calories. Instead, Body-for-LIFE consists of five to six small, balanced meals each day, in addition to consistent cardiovascular and weight-training workouts.” Another factor in the program’s success might be in its ability to meld memorable results and product sales via the annual Body-for-LIFE challenge in which the public chooses one person who achieved the best results (physically and mentally) from the program. Ferraro said the contest is “a huge force in getting people into Body-for-LIFE, and a great driver of store traffic as people stock up on the EAS products they need to help them through the 12 weeks and beyond.” In addition, “allowing people to see the incredible results our top finalists have achieved is another unique way we’re able to inspire people to try Body-for-LIFE and EAS products.” SlimStyles, from Everett, WA-based Natural Factors, “addresses the issue of blood sugar control and is a total approach to weight loss rather than deprivation of one category like lowering carbohydrate intake,” explained the company’s vice president of sales and marketing, Kathy McKnight, who lost 15 lbs. following the plan. “We did not want a fad diet,” McKnight said. “When the research on soluble fiber evolved to address the issues of blood sugar, including syndrome X and pre-diabetic conditions, we decided to develop products around this condition. A program that would address a condition that statistics are showing to affect more then 60 million Americans today.” Another emerging diet—which measures the quality of carbohydrates—is based on glycemic index (GI). High GI foods spike your blood sugar and then quickly crash; low GI foods cause a smaller and more gradual rise in blood sugar. According to www.solo-gi.com, the Website for Solo GI (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), low GI foods are digested slowly, release sugar into the blood, providing sustained energy and aiding weight management. “[The] low glycemic approach is the natural evolution of the low-carb phenomenon, but something that is more sustainable and simpler to follow and not so much a diet, but a way of thinking about food and what we should eat,” said Saul Katz, president and CEO of Solo GI, which offers low-GI bars. “When people get the connection about how carbs in particular [are] related to weight management, our energy levels, performance, and disease prevention, they get it. And once they get it, they get it for life.” This attention to blood sugar, syndrome X, and a change in lifestyle must please Dr. Stephen Holt, president and CEO of Natures Benefit (Newark, NJ), who is skeptical about most diets. “First and foremost, there is not a diet in the history of medicine that has resulted in sustained weight control,” he said. For Holt, an early proponent and frequent lecturer on hoodia gordonii, getting to a healthy weight is a multi-pronged approach involving diet, behavior modification, exercise, and a healthy lifestyle or a positive lifestyle change. Syndrome X, which Holt examined extensively in his 2002 book, Combat Syndrome X, Y, and Z, results in “a chain of altered events in body chemistry that favors the occurrence of poor sugar balance, obesity, high blood cholesterol, and hypertension.” An underlying resistance to insulin characterizes syndrome X, Holt wrote. Dr. Frederic Vagnini, medical director of the Heart, Diabetes & Weight Loss Centers of New York, also sees weight loss as more than jumping from diet to diet. “You need compliance, motivation, follow up,” as well as getting emotional eating under control, exercising more, improving sleep, and perhaps undergoing counseling. The kind of foods one eats is also important. In her book, Revitalize Your Hormones, Dr. Theresa Dale, outlines a three-month endocrine rebuilding diet in which participants eat “approximately 70 percent of your food (vegetables) raw. Raw foods contain all of their enzymes, vitamins, and minerals.” Robb believes diets should be focused on natural foods. “The body has no mechanism for controlling or monitoring itself if it’s not natural,” he said. No matter what route consumers pursue, retailers can help. “They’re in a prime position that’s critical to the destiny of our nation,” Robb said. “People often come to a health food store, they want help. They’re challenged in life; a lot revolves around what they’re eating and not eating. A retailer who is educated and who has an arsenal of five dietary books they can recommend can truly change someone’s life.” VR
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| For More Information: |
• Atkins Nutritionals, (800) 628-5467 |