Kimkins is an online diet program created by Heidi Diaz under the pseudonym 'Kimmer' that became famous in 2007 in the magazine ''

Woman's World ''Woman's World'' is an American supermarket weekly magazine with a circulation of 1.6 million readers. Printed on paper generally associated with tabloid publications and priced accordingly, it concentrates on short articles about subjects such ...

''. The program became embroiled in controversy when it was found that its founder was morbidly

obese Obesity is a medical condition, sometimes considered a disease, in which excess body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it may negatively affect health. People are classified as obese when their body mass index (BMI)—a person's we ...

and had provided some false

testimonial In promotion and advertising, a testimonial or show consists of a person's written or spoken statement extolling the virtue of a product. The term "testimonial" most commonly applies to the sales-pitches attributed to ordinary citizens, where ...

s on her website.

Overview

The diet was developed by Diaz on Lowcarbfriends.com—an online

message board An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...

focusing on

low-carbohydrate diet Low-carbohydrate diets restrict carbohydrate consumption relative to the average diet. Foods high in carbohydrates (e.g., sugar, bread, pasta) are limited, and replaced with foods containing a higher percentage of fat and protein (e.g., meat, p ...

s . Diaz left the board in 2006 to start Kimkins with a partner, and in January 2007 ''People'' featured a column on extreme weight loss that mentioned Kimkins. The program gained popularity when ''

'' published a feature on the diet and its creator 'Kim Drake' in their June 12, 2007 issue. In August 2007, considerable negative coverage of the diet began appearing on the internet, particularly in the form of

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

s and several of the site's administrators were fired after publicly questioning the diet. In September 2007, a

private investigator A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI and informally called a private eye), a private detective, or inquiry agent is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private investigators of ...

was hired to investigate Diaz, exposing her real identity as well as publishing numerous photos demonstrating she was morbidly obese.

Lawsuit

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

lawsuit was launched against the website in March, 2008 after it was revealed that the diet's creator was a 300-pound woman named Heidi Diaz who was promoting the diet under the pseudonym Kim 'Kimmer' Drake. During investigations for the suit it was found that the website took in $1,200,000 during the month of June, 2007 alone. It also was revealed that the post-weight loss photos were taken from a mail-order bride website rather than actually representing someone who actually had undertaken the diet. Numerous

s on the website were falsified, and several of the website employees have been fired for questioning the safety of the diet.

Consumer concerns

Members of the website were banned after they disagreed with Diaz online. People who failed to lose weight were quickly blamed for not adhering to the diet strictly enough. Diaz encouraged people to continue following the plan despite showing signs of

eating disorders An eating disorder is a mental disorder defined by abnormal eating behaviors that negatively affect a person's physical or mental health. Only one eating disorder can be diagnosed at a given time. Types of eating disorders include binge eating ...

. The diet won an award for "Worst Product for 2008" from the website healthyweight.net. The Los Angeles

Better Business Bureau Better Business Bureau (BBB) is a private, 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization founded in 1912. BBB's self-described mission is to focus on advancing marketplace trust, consisting of 97 independently incorporated local BBB organizations in the Unit ...

gave the company a rating of "F," which means they "strongly question the company’s reliability for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law’s licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company’s industry is known for its fraudulent business practices."

References

External links

Official website

"Kimkins" Diet Fraud Unmasked
by

Stephen Barrett Stephen Joel Barrett (; born 1933) is an American retired psychiatrist, author, co-founder of the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF), and the webmaster of Quackwatch. He runs a number of websites dealing with quackery and health frau ...

at Casewatch.net {{Fad diets Diets Fad diets Health fraud products