http://www.usatoday.com/news/health...carb-usat_x.htm

Posted 4/4/2004 6:41 PM Updated 4/4/2004 7:17 PM

Study: Dieters are consuming more carbs than they think
By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY

Many people who might think they're eating a diet low in carbohydrates actually are consuming twice as many carbs as the popular Atkins diet recommends.

Many people have cut food such as pasta out of their diets, but are still eating a lot of carbs.

By Rick Bowmer AP

The NPD Group, a market research company, examined the food-intake records of 11,000 people over three years and found that the 5% with the lowest intake of carbs consumed an average of 128 grams of net carbs (total minus fiber) a day.

That's far more than the 20 grams of net carbs recommended for the induction phase of the Atkins diet, and more than the 40 to 60 grams recommended on the ongoing weight-loss phase.

Low-carb dieters usually beef up fat and protein intake while cutting back on foods like bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, beans, many fruits and some vegetables. Millions of people have either been on this kind of diet or are now on one.

"There are a lot of people who are trying these diets and saying they are on them, but not many people are getting down to 50 grams of carbs a day," says Harry Balzer, NPD Group vice president.

The 128-gram average is OK for a young, active person on the maintenance phase of the program, says Colette Heimowitz, a nutritionist with the Atkins companies. The range after weight loss is about 60 to 125 grams.

It could be that dieters don't really understand the details. "Because low-carb eating has become trendy, a lot of people say they are doing Atkins but haven't read the book. They're just not eating bread and pasta," says Andrea Mondello, editor of lowcarbeating.com. She has lost 100 pounds on the diet since 1999 and limits herself to 20 to 40 grams of carbs a day.

"The biggest thing I hear people say is they are on modified Atkins, which means they've decided to do their own thing," she says.

Another possibility for the higher-than-expected carb intake: Dieters are cheating with too many low-carb products. More than 600 of these foods, including bread, pasta and brownie mixes, were introduced last year, according to Productscan Online, a market research company in Naples, N.Y.

"I'm very glad we have these products, but they need to be used with thought," Mondello says. "I don't think you should make most of them the staple of your diet.

"If you buy a low-carb cookie or candy bar, it's still a treat, and you should use it as a treat. If a candy bar has two carbs, that doesn't mean you can have 10 a day."

Valid points, but human error combined with human nature leads most dieters to underestimate their intake. It's not a phenomenon specific to LCing.

I seriously question their conclusions from that study. How can you assume that the bottom percentile of the participants were Atkins dieters, and how can you assume that they thought they were eating fewer carbs than they really were?

You are right Kristine. The NPD Group collects info at store level (not all stores) as it goes through the cash register. They are high profile, reporting to such companies as Campbells Soup, Unilever and Hersheys Chocolate. They should have a very good picture of how food product sales have changed, particularly in the last year. Despite that, the NPD Group went on record last Dec saying that the Atkins Diet was only a fad. Since then I think they have been kicking themselves. They still don't understand the diet, but are now writing articles on low carb - with a spin, it appears, that they weren't really wrong 3-months ago because people aren't as low carb as the diet would suggest. However, I think Balzer has blown some of his credibility. Ask Florida orange juice makers or Canadian potato farmers if they see an impact. It is not very often you see a market research company like this go so far off track. I suspect by the end of this year they'll be announcing how right they were all along - low carb is here to stay.


"Everybody is falling all over themselves," Mr. Balzer of NPD said.
"But the issue here is staying power." But will low-carb diets be as
important as they are now? "No way, absolutely not," he said. "It's
going to follow low-fat."
January 4, 2004
Restaurant Chains, Too, Watch Their Carbs
By JULIE DUNN (NYT)

Ha. So I suppose this is their violent opposition that goes right between "ridicule" and "accepting it as self evident."

Since the LC diet didn't really take off until 2003, by taking the records back 3 years, instead of just for 2003, he actually would distort findings anyway. I imagine he knows this, or someone in his organization does. It's just another form of cherry picking + the other false assumptions you mention.

I find it hard to figure out what Balzer is saying. It sounds like he's spoon-feeding his clients, or worse, he doesn't know what he is talking about. If LC "follows low fat" it could be around for some time. But what's left - low protein (high fat/high carbs/grass)? OR, heaven forbid - the balanced diet (Hershey chocolate, Unilever shakes, MinuteMaid OJ, canned beans, Kraft Dinner and Campbells Soup). Poor Campbells Soup - they just started making low fat a couple of years ago. I guess they missed that wave. Time to get a new marketing research agency perhaps?

I still say a lot of the misunderstanding and such is that "Atkins" has become a catch-all term for "low-carb". The old adhesive bandage/BandAid syndrome.

I do think the mad scramble will fade, and it will go the way of low-fat.in that it won't be the marketing bonanza it is now. It will still be around because it WORKS, but it will SEEM to be "gone" once the hype dies down.

Potatofree you are right that I shouldn't confuse Atkins with all the other LC out there. As a result of the low fat/low cholesterol movement meat consumption decreased by more than 25% between 1970 and 1995 in the US. Egg consumption dropped by almost 40%. For more clarity, perhaps we should be talking about 25-year fads. This might be Balzer's way out. "Hey Look - Low Carb is only going to last for another 25 years."

To me the low carb diet(s) might just be another weight loss regime (that works extremely well for some people, but not for everyone) if there wasn't the connection between carbs, blood sugar and insulin. That connection has still evaded the nutritional community by and large. Since 20% of us are heading down the diabetes road, I think there is still plenty of room for growth in LC diets. It will probably take the nutritional community 25 years to catch on the this connection and perhaps we'll have another bump in the diet.

"The NPD Group, a market research company, examined the food-intake records of 11,000 people over three years and found that the 5% with the lowest intake of carbs consumed an average of 128 grams of net carbs (total minus fiber) a day"




This would be very interesting had they studied 11,000 ATKINS dieters!! This says nothing about these people following Atkins, it says the 5% with the lowest intake of carbs, not that ANY of these people were on Atkins. So you could take 11,000 people on ANY diet and say the lowest 5% were eating over the Atkins recommended limit.

It goes on to tell about the diet a little, but never actually says that any of those studied were on Atkins. Some people would consider 128 carbs a day LOW CARB, Weight Watchers followers especially. As a matter of fact, this article doesn't even say that the people studied were even dieters at all!!

I wish they would do real studies instead of attempting to mislead people with this stuff.

The market research companies and nutritionists that continue to call low carbing a fad that will go away just like the high-protein diet craze in the early 80's, might be forgiven because they don't realize that they are using outmoded demographics to base their opinions and "research" on--they aren't committing the mistake of comparing apples to oranges, more like comparing dehydrated apples to freeze-dried apples. They both look about the same, they both taste about the same, but there are vast differences in the keeping qualities.

All previous studies on the nature of fads, or of the behavior patterns of large groups of people in general, those done before, say, 1999, have been rendered obsolete--the conditions underlying the studies no longer exist! Such has been the oh so subtle SEA CHANGE brought about by the Internet. When news "spread" across the planet (as opposed to accross town) can be measured in hours, perhaps even in minutes, versus the days, sometimes weeks as existed in the 80's when the majority of people still relied on the printed word (on paper) to stay informed of things like fads, and diets--the older studies' findings no longer hold water. Even if, God Forbid, the Atkins diet HAS some faulty science, with the advent of the Internet as THE trusted way of knowledge procurement--the "professionals" with their credentials will have a tough row to hoe; If Atkins is based on good science, as I firmly believe, the credentialed professionals have about as much chance of blunting the so-called "lo-carb diet fad", as straightening the deck chairs would have had of altering the fate of the Titanic.

If for no other reason than the fact that you can no longer hide your misinformation behind a legitimate-sounding front organization--such as the PETA-based Physicians group (name escapes me) that regularly issues press releases about the dangers of low carb eating. The word gets out on them within hours, sometimes minutes, through various forum groups, such as this one--correcting the disinformation, discussing it, countering it, not just with the knowledge of a nation, but the world. Abe Lincoln's pronouncement about not being able to fool all the people all the time has never been more true. The lying pundits ought to start learning from their mistakes--when they do, Internet consumers will have to be ever more watchful of subtletry than now.