Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

The Healthy Weight Network has released their Slim Chance Awards for 2008.

• Slim Chance Awards 2008: Fraud and Quackery

For their Worst Product category, they chose Kimkins:

WORST PRODUCT: Kimkins diet. It must have seemed an easy way to get rich quick. Founder Heidi “Kimmer” Diaz set up a website and charged members a fee to access the Kimkins diet, boasting they could lose up to 5 percent of their body weight in 10 days. “Better than gastric bypass,” there was “no faster diet,” and in fact she herself had lost 198 pounds in 11 months. Stunning “after” photos were displayed. In June 2007 Women’s World ran it as a cover story, and that month alone PayPal records show the Kimkins site took in over $1.2 million. Then users began complaining of chest pains, hair loss, heart palpitations, irritability and menstrual irregularities. This was not surprising since Kimkins is essentially a starvation diet, down to 500 calories per day and deficient in many nutrients (appallingly, laxatives are advised to replace missing fiber). In a lawsuit, 11 former members are uncovering a vast record of Diez’s alleged fraud. They found that the stunning “after” photos, including one of Kimmer herself, had been lifted from a Russian mail order bride site. According to a deposition reported by Los Angeles TV station KTLA, Diaz admitted using fake pictures, fake stories and fake IDs, and a judge has allowed the litigants to freeze some of her assets.

It was hard not to notice Kimkins. I did a couple of write ups about it here:

• Starling Fitness » How Did Kimkins Fly Under My Radar?
• Starling Fitness » Kimkins Diet Exposed on Fox

Technically, the whole problem with Kimkins imploded in 2007, but all of the deception really came to light last year. I’m surprised to see that Kimkins took in over $1.2 million, but I’m glad to know that some of that might be recovered for the victims.