Kimkins Controversy - Kimkins Scam

Anti-Kimkins Blogs of Note: Kimkins Dangers

This particular blog is worth mentioning because it’s most recent post contains a call to action with regard to getting Kimkins shut down. The material was originally on the LCF board.

My favorite post on Kimkins Dangers has got to be Heidi Diaz Comes Clean (Well, Sorta). The author quotes the coming clean item from Kimkins.com but adds personal commentary (in parenthesis and in red). Some of these are pretty much exactly what many of us were thinking as we read Heidi’s words back when she first wrote them.

Heidi is Blogging up a Storm

The Blogspot blog authored by ‘Kimmer’ is probably the most active and relevant ‘affiliate’ blog left. There is a lot of well constructed new content there. I am not being sarcastic, I really think it is a well designed and well written blog. There is even a comment or two on the blog. They are both from people who mysteriously address their comment to somebody other than Kimmer, as if they mistakenly think it was posted by someone else. Both commentators also created a Blogger account near the time that they made their comment on Heidi’s Blog. Not surprisingly, they are both very positive comments.

There is no way know if Heidi wrote the comments herself, but it seems plausible.

Kimkins Review

This episode of the Dick Van Dyke show is called Never Name a Duck.

Professional affiliate marketer Wouter Van Dyke has done what most pros do with sites that market products that have had the new wear off. He has moved on and ceased working on Kimkins Review but he has left it on autopilot so that it can still potentially generate some revenue. Some Kimkins critics have tried to convince him to remove the fraudulent claims from the site, using the argument that he is at risk of civil or legal action. Wouter is probably correct in his assumptions about the situation. The old TV show has two opening credit scenes, the one shown above and also one in which Van Dyke deftly walks around the ottoman.

Is Kimkins Unstoppable?

I can’t help but grumble over the fact that all of this could have been stopped over a year ago when myself and others tried to discuss Kimkins’ fake Success Stories photos

This quote from Anti-Kimkins dates from early October of 2007. The author’s complaint is related to deletion of posts on LCF that criticized Kimmer and her business practices long before a concerted effort resulted in exposing the fraud. The fact is that Heidi Diaz was and is a relentless and innovative manipulator of people and she could easily use her skills and the forum rules to full advantage. One can assume that she actively portrayed criticism and doubt as ad hominem attacks. I don’t disagree with the quote, but nobody KNEW until the PI pictures were taken.

I was going to wait until October of 2008 to make a post about this quote, but I actually do think that Kimkins will be gone by then.

Kimkins Exposure

The tangled web that is the Kimkins Controversy was given the cookie-cutter treatment of television journalism a few days ago. It is great that countless people who may have never heard of Kimkins got the basic messages that it is a fraud and that it is not a well researched and safe way of eating.

Actually, I am curious as to how many people would have seen this item on Good Morning America. I was surprised to learn that the TV show is aired in Europe, the Middle East, the Philippines and Australia. The show spent a lot of years as the #1 morning show in America. In November 2006, GMA averaged 5.1 million viewers. It has been a close second to The Today Show for many years.

So it’s quite likely that millions of people saw this news item. The only website that was mentioned and shown on television was Heidi’s site. It may be a bit early to look for the effect of the television exposure on her traffic, but so far it seems to have been minimal.

Support For Those With Eating Disorders

A Kimkins staff member has stated on national television that they try to prevent people from developing eating disorders by providing support. Just prior to this statement she admits that the incidence of eating disorders in a group of people with food issues is inevitable.

I am curious about what happens when this support does not prevent an eating disorder. What happens when someone who is active on the forum makes statements that are clear indications that they have an eating disorder? What happens when someone on the Kimkins forum is vocally concerned that something is wrong with their personal way of eating?

I Missed It :(

This blogger has been AFK for some R&R, FYI. The lack of commentary of the story about Kimkins on Good Morning America was not intentional.

It goes without saying that everybody else is talking about it. I don’t know that much about the reach and popularity of this television show. I am not a morning person. Lets hope it will serve as a warning to some of those January dieters.

Does Media Coverage Hurt Kimkins Sales?

The adage that there is no such thing as bad press, has got to be one of the most enduring ‘not quite true’ adages ever. In the moment, the Woman’s World coverage was tremendously beneficial to Heidi Diaz, but it probably hastened the exposure of the fraud. In contrast, the eventual coverage of the fraud by mainstream media might have inadvertently caused a small up tick in sales.

Now that ABC News is working on a story about the Kimkins diet scam, the website will get a big spike in traffic. I sounds crazy to say that this will increase sales when it is a story about a fraud and about a diet that some doctors and dietitians have advised against trying. This reminds me, has anyone ever published an analogy between post exposure Kimkins membership and those women who mail proposals to men on death row?

Is this Funny?

Here is a slightly ridiculous alteration of a screencap from Heidi’s Blog…

This is the first effort at funny on Kimkins Controversy. The French word for duck is canard and it is used in the English language to refer to an unfounded or false, deliberately misleading story. I think it’s a little ironic that ducks are the symbol used by the people who had a hand in exposing the deliberately misleading Kimkins story.
 (k-närd)

Inventive Stumble Tagging

I recently installed Stumble on my PC. I didn’t know that Stumble would add elements to my Google searches. I have been Googling Kimkins regularly for the past few days and the tag that I underlined in green on this screencap struck me as kinda weird.

I don’t know if an anti-kimkins person added this tag in an effort to be subversive, or if a pro-kimkins person (there are still a handful of these) did it to generate traffic for Heidi’s blogspot blog. Kimkinsdiet.blogspot.com would actually get lots of traffic if it allowed unmoderated comments the way some anti-kimkins blogs do.