When I was growing up everyone used to tell me that I would get fat as I got older because I was Italian (even though nobody else in my family was fat?), and ate all that bread and pasta. First of all the typical Italian meal I grew up on consisted of soup, meat, pasta, insalata (salad) or vegetables, and fruit and nuts for dessert (all in moderate proportions). Americans on the other hand nearly always have to have some kind of high calorie dessert after their meal; that's probably another reason so many Americans are fat.
And as far as I can tell Italians are far less obese than Americans. I was there in '97 and '00 and you had to go along way to find an overweight teenager, and in this country you don't have to go far to find a fat youngster. Between twinkies and the boob tube, they don't stand a chance.
Of one thing I am sure, as long as I earn my food, I will never be fat.
You make several good points, namely that the Italians eat high fat diets with pasta and bread yet are far less obese than Americans. The difference is that our diet is very high in refined carbs, as in sugar and flour products. Most Americans have a diet that consists of as much as 60% in carbs, mostly refined. The Italians also have a high fat diet like the French, yet they are not obese like we are.
However, the Atkins diet is not a fad diet. It is simply a diet of natural, unprocessed foods sans the junk food. It is meat, vegetables, unprocessed dairy, whole grains, brown rice, fruit, nuts and beans. That is not a fad, there is nothing faddish about it. That is how people used to eat until we got on this silly low fat/high carb kick that has resulted in an epidemic of obesity and diabetes II.