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Atkins goes to the movies


Low-carb bars join theater chain's concessions cast

Jun. 26, 2004 12:00 AM


Dan Harkins knows diet fads. In 1976, he was showing the Arnold Schwarzenegger weight-lifting documentary Pumping Iron at his Camelview theater in Scottsdale when he noticed that the concession stand was doing little business.

The Valley theater owner ventured into the screening room, which was filled with muscle-bound spectators who weren't eating popcorn or candy bars. Harkins, ever the entrepreneur, refused to be defeated.

"I rushed to a health-food store," he recalls, "and bought a couple of cases of protein bars."

Concessions sales shot up to normal.

Two decades later, Harkins is responding to another craze: the Atkins diet. That grants the weight-loss formula its deepest foray into enemy territory - movie concession stands, which are regarded as places where willpower crumbles.

Harkins is selling low-carb Atkins Advantage chocolate bars at 10 locations and may expand the line if sales are brisk.

AMC, the Valley's other major theater chain, began selling sugar-free Russell Stover Pecan Delights candy about a year ago, spokesman Rick King said.

"We continue to look for items that might get traction with our guests," King said. "But so far, (we) have not further expanded those offerings."

Although such moves are a nod to the health-conscious, most theater foods - popcorn, candy bars, nachos - are still built to expand the waistline.

Despite such temptations, experts say it's possible to snack at the movies and not wreck your diet.

"I think it's the either-or thing," says Patti Milligan, a registered dietitian and corporate nutritionist for Sprouts Farmers Market.

She advises that people choose a single high-calorie snack rather than multiple items.

"If you're going to do the beverage, fine," she says. "Or choose the popcorn or the sugary snacks. But recognize that it's going to be about 400 to 500 calories. If you really feel like you've got to have a snack at the movies, plan it in (to your diet)."

Milligan also suggests dividing a snack among those in the group.

"If we decide popcorn's our thing, we'll definitely go and get a popcorn, then we split it up," she says.

Nancy Groben, a math teacher at Sunnyslope High School, employs a different scheme to cut calories at the movies.

"I usually don't go to the movies hungry," she says. "I usually go right after a meal, or I go to the movies and then we're going to go to dinner after.

"If I want to nibble on something in the movies, I don't buy anything there. I bring it with me in my purse. There's nothing there that I can buy."

Although that may work for Groben, Terri Taylor, nutrition educator for Scottsdale Healthcare, says it's not realistic to expect people to abstain from movie snacks.

"Portions are the big problems," she says. "It's not necessarily the carbs or the fat, it's the portions of the foods we're eating.

"Unfortunately, some of the portions are pretty big there."

Taylor recommends a small unbuttered popcorn, which offers fiber and fills you.

Observing such rules is probably more important for frequent moviegoers.

"If you're going to the movies once a month and it's a big treat for you all . . . it probably doesn't matter," she says.

Harkins says he's committed to offering healthful snacks (he pops his popcorn in canola oil rather than coconut oil, for example) but acknowledges that people treat movie-going as a celebration and tend to break their diets when they go.

"It's like eating birthday cake at a birthday party," says Harkins, who, like most theater owners, derives most of his profits from concession sales.

Though Harkins is helping some dieters with Atkins bars, the dietitians warn that low-carb bars aren't necessarily diet food. They may meet the needs of Atkins dieters, but they contain plenty of calories. The Atkins Advantage bar, while advertising just two "net carbs," has 220 calories, including 100 from fat.

"Those things can be very misleading because there is no legal definition of what low-carb is, and they're still full of calories," Taylor says. "Low-carb and low calories are not the same thing."

Groben, the math teacher, suspects a profit motive behind Atkins bars at the movies.

"Everybody's doing it," she says. "I think that's why movies are starting to. Because they can make money, that's why, and they want to cater to the public."

Reach Muller at (602) 444-8651.