Here’s my advice: Quit quitting stuff
The fickleness of the “wellness” cult — and that of our pervasive influencer culture full of selfstyled experts — has been highlighted again. And so has the harm they can cause.
Former anti-sugar evangelist Sarah Wilson has revealed, a year or so after leaving the business that made her millions by selling pseudoscience, that she doesn’t practice, any more, what she used to preach.
Wilson’s “I Quit Sugar” empire sold (literally) the story that quitting all sweet stuff — including fruit — was the key to health and happiness. Now, she has told the she eats chocolate every day, can’t live without red wine and loves croissants. The interview was to promote her new book about anxiety. The sugar stuff, she says, is all in the past. She even claims she never told anyone to avoid sugar.
This glossing over of the truth is breathtaking. Wilson became her own brand off the back of dodgy messages about quitting sugar; pushing sugar as the one big dietary baddie we all needed to eliminate. This spawned a raft of misinformation about nutrition that persists still. For her to blithely brush this off like it was nothing is, no doubt, hugely frustrating to true nutrition experts, who are still fighting myths and nonsense about how and what to eat. Not to mention to the many, many people who followed her advice and got sucked into a pattern of restrictive eating.
This is nothing new, though, especially in our increasingly digital world, where anyone can portray themself as an expert. Trends among influencers come and go, just like diet fads did in the days before Instagram.
Take formerly paleo-obsessed chef Pete Evans. These days we hardly hear about paleo anything. Pete’s all about the keto now, along with an increasingly kooky array of other causes including anti-fluoridation, anti-sunscreen, anti-5G and anti-vaccination. He also claims the mainstream media is “spreading plantbased propaganda”. Presumably we’re doing this by covering the growth in vegan and vegetarian eating and emphasising the eating of vegetables.
We can laugh and roll our eyes at this. And sometimes it is quite funny. But it’s also potentially hugely damaging. Particularly to people who are vulnerable to patterns of disordered eating. Restrictive diets — even when they’re dressed up as a “lifestyle” or described as a way of healing all that ails us, as I Quit Sugar was — can be a gateway to a seriously messed-up relationship with food for some.
Research is starting to show this. The
HWhat’s your view? letters@hos.co.nz endless parade of influencers on Instagram are not only posting pretty pictures. A recent study looking at women who post “fitspiration” images showed many had significant signs of disordered eating; almost a fifth were at risk for diagnosis of a clinical eating disorder. Another found the more time participants reported spending on Instagram, the more anxious and depressed they felt.
You don’t have to buy into this nonsense.
The next time someone tries to sell you a message about quitting any food, be smart. Unfollow.
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