Campaign issues diet warning
Jeremy Kelly, Fay Burstin and Leanne Edmistone
15mar04
AN unprecedented government campaign against the popular high-fat, low-carbohydrate Atkins diet will be launched today.

Victoria's Labor Government will be the first in Australia to roll out a hard-hitting educational campaign to alert people to the dangers of the diet.

And Queenslanders have been warned to seek medical advice before trying any sort of radical diet.

The warnings come as the diet's popularity surges, with estimates of up to a million Australians embracing low-carbohydrate diets.

Those same people are risking heart disease, cancer and depression, experts say.

While the Victorian campaign will spell out the risks using posters and pamphlets in doctors' waiting rooms, gymnasiums and universities, a spokeswoman for Queensland Health Minister Gordon Nuttall said the department had not been approached to provide any official recommendations.

"We'd simply recommend people see their GP before going on any type of diet," she said.

Victorian Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said the decision was common sense.

"When we know something is bad for people, like smoking, then we let people know what the health risks are."

The Atkins diet tells people they can eat unlimited fats, meat and other high protein foods at the expense of carbohydrates.

The diet has boomed in popularity in the past five years with sales of Atkins' products soaring by 400 per cent in the past six months. Celebrity adherents include actors Jennifer Aniston and Renee Zellweger.

Nutritionist Sharon Natoli, from Food and Nutrition Australia, said she treated many former followers of the Atkins diet who had abandoned it in despair.

She said most people lost weight on the Atkins regime but were probably losing fluid and breaking down muscle rather than losing fat.

"Most people complain of a lack energy because the body is not getting any carbohydrates which it needs for fuel," Ms Natoli said.

Australian Medical Association obesity spokesman Dr Rick Kausman said low-carbohydrate diets were now the most popular.

"But they are unhealthy and inappropriate, both nutritionally and psychologically, because it's unsustainable in the long-run and can make things worse."

Ms Pike said short-term effects from ultra-low carbohydrate diets were constipation, dehydration, bad breath, low energy and poor concentration.

There were concerns such diets increased the likelihood of cancer, heart disease, depression and osteoporosis.

Dietitians Association of Australia Queensland spokeswoman Kate Di Prima yesterday said fad diets were potentially dangerous and did not follow basic good nutritional guidelines.

"People need to be wary of any diet that cuts out huge groups of food, that claims to be easy with no effort, and says you will lose large amounts of weight quickly."

http://www.thecouriermail.news.com....255E953,00.html

Weight of shame aids fat loss
Sarah Wotherspoon
15mar04

LARA Zeschke attributes her weight loss to two things - her daughter and the Atkins diet.

Ms Zeschke says her daughter Tamara gave her the shock she needed to start dieting after she was ashamed to be seen with her mother in front of her friends.
"At the school gate she didn't want to give me a kiss goodbye because she was embarrassed by me," she said.

"Now I take her to school and she gives me a big kiss and a cuddle. There are no worries about being embarrassed."

Ms Zeschke lost 39kg by following the high protein, low carbohydrate Atkins diet, slimming down from 108kg to 69kg in 10 months.

She said she wasn't concerned about reports claiming long-term low-carb diets were bad for you.

"He (Dr Atkins) doesn't condone having huge amounts of fat," Ms Zeschke said. "He says to be careful about how much fat you have and to have it in moderation."

After trying a number of other diets without success she decided to try Dr Atkins' low-carb diet.

"What he said made sense to me so I decided to give it a go," she said. "I started having really good results really quickly, which helped me stick to it."

Ms Zeschke was losing 3-4kg a week at the beginning of the diet. She is scaling that weight loss back now and adding some carbohydrates to her diet as she gets closer to her goal of 60kg. "I've got heaps more energy and I'm feeling a lot better about life," she said.

"To me feeling better and being able to run, play sport and exercise, and to be able to keep up, shows to me that I'm doing something right."

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/co...55E2862,00.html