Dr. Phil goes to the grocery store: the Shape Up! line of diet products endorsed by Phil McGraw has generated controversy and questions: can anybody create diet foods?

He's not a medical doctor, bur he plays well on TV. Now, Phil McGraw. Ph.D., psychologist and syndicated TV "life strategist," is in, or at least very close to, the diet foods business, as he endorses a line of snack bars, shakes and supplements that dovetail with release of his diet book.

By contrast Dr. Henry Atkins, M.D., didn't start selling food and diet products hearing his name until more than two decades after his first diet book was published. But the Shape Up! line of diet shakes, snack bars and supplements Dr. Phil endorses shipped to such stores as Wal-Mart, Target and Walgreens at the same time as his book, "The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom."

The Shape Up! line includes chocolate and vanilla "complete nutrition" shakes and snack bars in flavors that include chocolate peanut butter, oatmeal raisin, fudge brownie and chocolate toil fee crunch. The shakes and bars are fortified with 24 vitamins and minerals.

Dr. Phil's products don't fall into the typical low-fat or low-carb categories. They claim to carry special vitamin supplements aimed at helping "apple" and "pear" body types--terms he coined for people who store fat higher in their bodies (apple) or lower (pear).

The shakes tend toward the lower-carb, lower-fat end of the spectrum, with 21 grams of carbohydrates, 8 grams of fiber and 3 grams of far per serving. But the bars can be fairly high in fat, with the chocolate-peanut butter variety deriving 60 of its 210 calories, or 28.6 percent, from fat. That's also 22 percent of the daily value for saturated fat. They're also fairly high in carbohydrates, with one bar containing 26 grams.

In copy on the shakes, McGraw describes his weight-loss plan as "eat a healthy low calorie diet and exercise more," adding that the products help support the plan. "These products contain scientifically researched levels of ingredients that can help you change your behavior to take control of your weight," according to McGraw's "endorsement."

McGraw has avoided making direct cross-endorsements among his TV show, his book, and the weight-loss products bearing his likeness. But weight control has become a recurrent theme of "The Dr. Phil Show" in the same year the book and diet products launched. The book doesn't mention Shape Up!, and Shape Up! products don't refer to the book. But the products and book bear similar pictures of Dr. Phil and a similar graphic treatment, and they urge buyers to check out the www.drphil.com web site for the TV show.

In its promotional materials, CSA Nutraceuticals, the company marketing the diet products, says they have been "developed by a team of health care professionals, nutritionists and food scientists using the latest research and the highest quality ingredients." Asked what health-care workers and scientists participated, a company spokesperson replied: "CSA Nutraceuticals has recruited some of the world's leading manufacturers of nutritional products to create [Shape Up!]. The manufacturers include Nelson Nutraceuticals, Access Business Group and O-At-Ka."

Nelson, Irwindale, Calif., is a maker of snack bars and other health and nutrition products. Access Business Group, Ada, Mich., is also a manufacturer and distributor of such products as Nutrilite and other brands for Amway Corp.'s Quixtar unit, and O-At-Ka is a New York dairy cooperative.

Robert Passikoff, president of con suiting firm Brand Keys, believes the Dr. Phil diet and products have strong potential in the market, akin to that of the Atkins diet and products. "You've got a guy with a very high level of believability who is able to get people to follow what he puts out there," Passikoff says. "There's the appearance of not being biased."

Others are not so sure, nor are they convinced that a "life strategist" should be entering the food processing industry.

Visionary or opportunist?

While McGraw has tried to avoid the appearance of exploiting his TV fame and diet book to sell diet products, it hasn't kept controversy at bay. The diet products he endorses have been panned by some nutritionists.

Robert H. Eckel, M.D., professor of medicine at the University of Colorado and chairman of the American Heart Association's Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Metabolism, praised Dr. Phil's book in an inside-cover quote. But he later told the Los Angeles Times he was surprised to learn of the diet products, which he termed "faddish" and said he might have withheld support for the book had he known about the products.

David Schardt, a nutritionist with Center for Science in the Public Interest, said in a review of Shape Up! products that he found no evidence they contribute to weight loss.

Joanne Ikeda, co-director of the Center for Weight and Health at the University of California in Berkeley and who has tracked the diet business for more than two decades, criticizes McGraw for trying to cash in on his celebrity by hawking diet products and books.

"I don't think Dr. Phil's diet advice is anything very innovative or new or will make much of a dent in the obesity epidemic," Ikeda says. The hook, she says, includes fairly common sense advice, such as urging people to exercise more, get their lives and emotions in order, and develop a support group that will back diet plans.

The connection between Dr. Phil and CSA Nutraceuticals, the company that markets Shape Up! products, also has raised questions. CSA and Dr. Phil both emphasize in a press release that he is donating all of his "endorsement income" from promoting Shape Up! to the Dr. Phil Foundation, which will donate the money to yet-undisclosed researchers and groups that fight childhood obesity.

CSA Nutraceuticals was formed in 2003, according to Texas corporation records, about six months before publication of the book, and operates from the same Irving, Tex., office as Courtroom Sciences Inc., a litigation consulting practice in which McGraw is a partner with Gary Dobbs. Dobbs is CEO and 100-percent owner of CSA, said spokeswoman Cathleen Bleers.

The foundation is run out of the same office as the litigation consulting practice and CSA Nutraceuticals. Bleers declined to comment on sales or the exact percentage the foundation will receive from the products, but said an initial goal is to donate $1 million.

The litigation consulting practice founded by McGraw and Dobbs coaches lawyers and witnesses on how best to appeal to jurors. That's where McGraw met Oprah Winfrey, when the talk-show host sought advice in the late 1990s as she defended a defamation lawsuit by the Texas Cattlemen's Beef Association for comments she made on mad cow disease. She won the case and began inviting McGraw onto her show to offer his psychological advice. His segments became so popular he spun off his own show in 2002.

But if Dr. Phil's plan and products are suspect, they're not alone. "Out of people who try to lose weight, about 5 percent are successful long-term, in terms of five years later," Ikeda says. "Nobody has been able to increase that success rate other than by playing with the statistics by not including dropouts and that kind of thing."

She also believes the Atkins and South Beach diets, the two other major diet programs on the market backed by bestselling books, are also unlikely to do better than the 5 percent success rate. She singles out the Atkins diet for flying in the face of decades of research linking high levels of fat consumption to heart disease. She labels the diets and products of both Dr. Phil and Dr. Atkins among fads that will fade within five to 10 years.

But Larry Shiman, director of the research firm Opinion Dynamics, Cambridge, Mass., doubts Dr. Phil will have anything approaching the impact or staying power of Dr. Atkins in supermarket aisles. While the Atkins diet has been building momentum for decades and has millions of adherents, Dr. Phil, despite his popularity, appeals to a much smaller niche, Shiman says.

Opinion Dynamics research completed in February showed 11 percent of U.S. adults are now on a low-carb diet, and 19 percent think they will be on one in two years.

"Once that many people start to do it, it becomes mainstream and you get a bandwagon effect," he says. But for all the popularity of the movement, low-carb dieters still account for only about a quarter to a third of the population that diets in a given year, he says, so there's room for plenty of other programs.

Matt Wiant, chief marketing officer for Atkins Nutritionals, which markets the fast-growing low-carb weight-loss brand, agrees there's room for plenty of diet programs.

"I think what separates the plans that succeed from the ones that fail is success rate and scientific validation," Wiant says. "If there's proof, the products will succeed. Every week there's a new Johnny-come-lately diet program. Marketers realize people need solutions, so everybody comes up with their flavor of the week. We've seen many [plans] come and go over the past several years. But the ones that survive are the ones that have scientific basis and a sustained success level."

He cites low-fat diets and Weight Watchers as programs--along with Atkins--that he believes will succeed long-term. But he doesn't believe Dr. Phil's, which he says lacks a clear definition, will have a major impact.

Atkins & Carb Solutions Gain Toeholds

                                             Sales     % Change

Pancake/French toast/waffle mix              $173M         2.5%
  Atkins Nutritionals                   $2,442,916        +366%

Bread mixes                                   $54M         -15%
  Atkins Nutritionals                   $1,433,957      +2,667%

Muffin mixes                                 $184M        -1.5%
  Atkins Nutritionals                   $7,727,051        +634%

Other baking mixes                           $161M        -2.6%
  Atkins Nutritionals                   $3,460,700        +257%

Fruit-flavored syrup                          $43M         0.9%
  Atkins Nutritionals                   $1,104,678         184%

Intrinsic health-value bars                  $676M
  Atkins Nutritionals                 $112,278,776         189%
  Carb Solutions                       $56,115,364        +237%

Salted snacks (no nuts)                      $890M         1.7%
  Atkins Nutritionals                   $3,306,464           NA
  Carb Solutions                          $284,925     +32,675%

                                          Share of
                                          category

Pancake/French toast/waffle mix
  Atkins Nutritionals                          1.4

Bread mixes
  Atkins Nutritionals                          2.7

Muffin mixes
  Atkins Nutritionals                          4.2

Other baking mixes
  Atkins Nutritionals                          2.1

Fruit-flavored syrup
  Atkins Nutritionals                          2.6

Intrinsic health-value bars
  Atkins Nutritionals                         16.6
  Carb Solutions                              14.2

Salted snacks (no nuts)
  Atkins Nutritionals                          0.4
  Carb Solutions                               0.0

Category sales are in millions of dollars, Atkins & Carb Solutions in
dollars. Data is from U.S. supermarkets, drug stores and mass
merchandisers (minus Wal-Mart). Figures are for 52 weeks ending Dec.
28, 2003. Source: Information Resources Inc.