Atkins-bashers

[cjsmith]

WTF is up with Atkins-bashing? I'm not even on that diet and I've heard more snideness, put-downs, and just general meanness about it to last me the rest of my life. Some haven't even read what the diet is supposed to be, but the myths about it arouse their ire anyhow. Some raise the subject just so they can spew their bile about it. The internal pressure must be immense. One gal I met at a quilting group got so hot under the collar that I'm semi-seriously glad she wasn't armed. What the hell is the threat here, lady? Go ahead, eat your bread. Nobody's taking it away from you.

Obviously there's something I'm missing, because the way I look at it seems simplistic by comparison: if I don't like a diet I don't go on it.

Is it really more about fat-hatred? That might explain some of it, but not all of it. Is it that anything strongly contradicting previous wisdom must be suppressed? That probably doesn't explain all of it either.

If I leave comments enabled, I'm a fool, right? Yeah, I'm a fool. So I'll just delete any comments bashing any diet at all (see above remark about my lifetime quota being full).

Comments

[lrc.livejournal.com]

The medical community has been against Atkins since the start. I remember reading that there hasn't really been much reliable research done on the diet, and one study that recently did come out disputed a lot of the "common beliefs" of the medical community.

The people on it are a bit annoying. Then again they are generally very happy about how well it works. There is good evidence that people didn't evolve eating a lot of carbs.

It would be nice if it were easier to eat more lean protien and veggies and less carbs and fats when buying food. I'm strongly against no-fat, or no-carb diets, but there is a reasonable balance to be found.

I ran across a newspaper article years ago tying low-fat diets with increased aggression and it had the interesting line that "this may explain the puzzling fact that while people on low fat diets had fewer heart attacks, they did not on average, live any longer".

Re:

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

"this may explain the puzzling fact that while people on low fat diets had fewer heart attacks, they did not on average, live any longer"

Oo, that is an interesting line. Makes me think. Raises more questions than it answers, but that's half the fun...