Last week, Consumer Reports recalled 15,000 glove-compartment organizer kits (a gift sent to new subscribers) because they contained a flashlight that overheated and caused burns. In a press release, Jim Guest, President of Consumer Union, noted that “in a perfect world, the cobbler’s children would have the most comfortable shoes, doctors would be the healthiest people,” and, I’m paraphrasing here, Consumer Reports would have the basic common sense to test a product before they shipped off 15,000 units.
I’d also add that in a perfect world, magazine editors wouldn’t discount medical and diet advice from trained healthcare professionals in favor of their own opinions. But this isn’t a perfect world, this is Consumer Reports.
Before I get off on a tangent, let me back up a little bit and tell you what’s got me going. Today the mail brought the June issue of Consumer Reports with this cover story: “The Truth about Dieting.” Dieting? You’ve heard me say it before: Consumer Reports should be telling me which dryer won’t burn my clothes. Or even which diet powder tastes best or dissolves fastest in water. But not testing and rating which diets THEY deem the healthiest! To be honest I haven’t even read the entire article yet. Because once I came across a sidebar titled, “Atkins diet: What’s wrong with it?” I was so outraged, I had to sit down and write to you right away.
Send in the “experts”
The “Atkins diet” referred to here is, of course, the popular diet program of Dr. Robert C. Atkins, the author of “Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution.” I should mention that Agora, HSI’s parent company, had published Dr. Atkins’ newsletter in the past, so we’ve had the opportunity to meet and work with this pioneer of complementary medicine, not to mention to read countless media attacks hurled at him (though few have donned headlines as biased and misrepresentative as this one).
The report launches straight into a barrage of the most negative claims, saying the nutrition establishment has denounced Dr. Atkins’ diet (I’d be very interested to find out who this “nutrition establishment” is), and an “expert panel of nutritionists” (members, no doubt, of the nutrition establishment) condemned the diet as ineffective and a health hazard. This panel was convened by the American Heart Association, the very same people who once lent their logo to Pop-Tarts, promoting them as a heart-healthy food.
The mini-article then details a study in which overweight volunteers were split into two groups. One group followed the Atkins diet (high protein and fat, but almost zero carbohydrates), and the other group followed what CR calls a “standard” low-fat, low-calorie, high-carbohydrate diet. After 12 weeks, the Atkins group had lost more than twice that of the low-fat group. (It also notes that three times as many people from the “standard group” dropped out altogether.) Yet the article still somehow tap dances around those points and paints the entire program as “unsound.”
The leader of the study, Gary Foster, Ph.D., clinical director of the weight-and-eating disorders program at the University of Pennsylvania, is held out by Consumer Reports as the expert. His conclusion: “If I had to say whether the Atkins diet is good or bad, I’d say I still don’t know.” So why in the world would CR lead off the very same article with such an entirely inappropriate attack, while stopping to genuflect before the AHA expert panel of nutritionists?
Clear results, foggy reporting
If you can get past the propaganda and read the actual information, the statistics clearly support Atkins as the most effective and maintainable diet approach. So shouldn’t the headline read, “Atkins diet: Our Test Debunks the Experts”?
And when they trot out a table showing the success rates of 6 diets, where’s Dr. Atkins? Missing in action. Jenny Craig is there. Weight Watchers is there. But no Dr. Atkins. Despite the fact that, and I am quoting now, “Of the 10 best-selling diet authors we asked about in our questionnaire, Atkins stood out from the rest. Eighteen percent of all the dieters said they’d read one of his books. That was more than four times as many as had read any of the others. And 34 percent said that his advice helped them to lose weight and keep it off.”
So their own readers, the very people upon whose experiences they built this report, had very positive results with this diet. But obviously, someone at Consumer Reports didn’t like the those results, so they found a way to bury Dr. A. with omission and negative “expert” rhetoric, forcing you to read very carefully to walk away with any facts.
A reporter in sheep’s clothing
I wish Consumer Reports would simply do what they’re supposed to do. This cover story on diets is sandwiched between an article on how to choose a PDA (personal digital assistant) and which facial tissue is best. That’s exactly what I need from Consumer Reports. And that’s all I need.
As many of you know, this isn’t the first time I’ve complained about CR overstepping its bounds. Last August they reported on milk, singing its praises and ignoring a multitude of milk-related health problems. A month later they told us how to manage diabetes. That’s exactly what I don’t need from Consumer Reports.
But since they had to insert themselves in the world of our health, they owe it to their readers – and, quite frankly, to Dr. Atkins – to conduct a true round of testing and reporting on Dr. Atkins’ diet. Had they done that, they would have found plenty of evidence that over the course of more than three decades this diet has helped countless people control diabetes, high blood pressure, and a host of other health problems. They might have pointed out how Dr. Atkins has dedicated his career to combining alternative therapies with conventional medical techniques. And they could have answered the critics who claim that not enough testing has been done on his diet with the information that the Dr. Robert C. Atkins Foundation has awarded a number of unrestricted research grants to, among others, Duke University, the University of Connecticut, and Harvard University, to study controlled carbohydrate research.
So please, Consumer Reports, just be what you are and go back to product testing in your imperfect world. We subscribe for one reason: for you to test and report on air conditioners and microwave ovens, tissues and PDAs. But please keep your reporters’ unqualified biases out of our healthcare. And please, don’t send us any more flashlights.
To Your Good Health,
Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute
Copyright 1997-2002 by Institute of Health Sciences, L.L.C.
