As obesity rises, so does ‘anti-diet’ advice
The rise of the anti-diet movement, pushed by some food manufacturers and assisted by social media influencers, has raised concern. Sasha Chavkin reports on a combined investigation.
Jaye Rochon struggled to lose weight for years. But she felt as if a burden had lifted when she discovered YouTube influencers advocating “health at every size” - urging her to stop dieting and start listening to her “mental hunger”.
She stopped avoiding favourite foods such as cupcakes and Nutella. “They made me feel like I was safe eating whatever the hell I wanted,” said Rochon, 51, a video editor in Wisconsin. In two months, she regained 50 pounds (22.7kg). As her weight neared 300 pounds (136kg), she began to worry about her health.
The videos Rochon encountered are part of the “anti-diet” movement, a social media juggernaut that began as an effort to combat weight stigma and an unhealthy obsession with thinness. Now global food marketers are seeking to cash in on the trend.
One company in particular, General Mills, maker of Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms cereals, has launched a multipronged campaign that capitalises on the teachings of the anti-diet movement, an investigation by The Washington Post and The Examination, a nonprofit newsroom that covers global public health, has found.
General Mills has toured the country touting anti-diet research it claims proves the harms of “food shaming”.
It has showered giveaways on registered dietitians who promote its cereals online with the hashtag #DerailTheShame, and sponsored influencers who promote its sugary snacks. It has also enlisted a team of lobbyists and pushed back against federal policies that would add health information to food labels.
General Mills complies with federal regulations and “works closely with a variety of scientific, health, nutrition and other credentialed experts to ensure we provide accurate, evidence-based information”, said spokesperson Andrea Williamson.
Online dietitians – many backed by food makers – also are building lucrative followings by co-opting anti-diet messages. Hashtags such as #NoBadFoods, #FoodFreedom and #DitchTheDiet have proliferated on social media.
We analysed more than 6000 social media posts by 68 registered dietitians with at least 10,000 followers. The analysis showed roughly 40% of them, with a combined reach of over 9 million followers, repeatedly used anti-diet language.
The majority of those were paid to promote products from food, beverage and supplement companies, the analysis found.
The rapid spread of anti-diet messaging – and the alliance between some registered dietitians and the food industry – has alarmed some in the public health community.
Since the 1980s, the US obesity rate has more than doubled, according to federal data. Nearly half a million Americans die early each year as a result of excess body weight, according to estimates in a 2022 Lancet study.
The anti-diet approach essentially shifts accountability for the health crisis away from the food industry for creating ultraprocessed junk foods laden with food additives, sugars and artificial sweeteners.
Anti-diet messaging
Amy Cohn, General Mills’ senior manager for nutrition and external affairs, promoted the cereal company’s antidiet messaging to a room of registered dietitians at a national food conference last fall, denouncing the media for “pointing the finger at processed foods” and making consumers feel ashamed of their choices.
“You can help derail the cycle of shame,” she said.
During the session Kathryn Lawson, a registered dietitian and director of regulatory and scientific affairs at the food giant Nestlé, tweeted: “People need to feel heard and seen to help break the cycle of shame when it comes to losing weight and eating.”
At least 10 registered dietitians promoted General Mills’ cereals in TikTok and Instagram posts last year, tagging the company in their posts. Some show off personalised Cheerios boxes adorned with their names while denouncing “food shaming” of ready-to-eat cereals.
Ina separate TikTok video published in November 2023, the self-described “antidiet” dietitian Cara Harbstreet promoted the company’s “Big G” cereals, including sugary brands such as Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cocoa Puffs.
“I will always advocate for fearlessly nourishing meals, including cereal,” she told followers in the video, labelled “#sponsored”, and disclosed that she was working with General Mills. “Because everyone deserves to enjoy food without judgment, especially kids.”
Harbstreet said in an email she was “no longer actively partnering” with General Mills.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, who recently co-sponsored legislation to help establish more prominent nutrition labelling on food packages,said food companies’ adoption of anti-diet messaging is especially pernicious.
“I think it is really reprehensible for the food industry to prey on the vulnerabilities of people who suffer from diabetes or obesity or diseases that are caused by excessive sugar, fat and perhaps other ingredients that do them harm,” Blumenthal said. “To tell people they should be proud of eating the wrong things, that’s hardly doing them a service.”
Industry support
This past fall, following a separate Washington Post and Examination investigation, the Federal Trade Commission cracked down on industry trade groups and a dozen nutrition influencers, flagging nearly three dozen social media posts it said failed to clearly disclose who was paying the influencers to promote artificial sweeteners or sugary foods. Numerous food companies continue to sponsor social media ads by outspoken anti-diet dietitians. Dietitian Colleen Christensen posted a video of herself eating Rocky Road ice cream on her TikTok account @no.food.rules, in which she mocks low-calorie alternatives. She has made ads for pancake makers Kodiak Cakes and Premier Protein to her 300,000 followers.
Lauren Smith, who calls herself a “food freedom dietitian” on TikTok, has posted ads for frozen pizza from a gluten-free brand, Banza, and for a high-protein snack company, Lorissa’s Kitchen, to her more than 70,000 followers.
Christensen didn’t respond to requests for comment. Smith said she only partners with brands she uses herself and that align with her nutrition philosophy.
Harbstreet also has posted ads for lowcalorie sweetener Truvia, Barilla pasta and cake icing brand Ask For Whipped, owned by Rich Foods.
Cargill, the parent company for Truvia, said in an email the company does not focus on the anti-diet movement. “We engage with dietitians across diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise,” they wrote.
A spokesperson for Kodiak Cakes said in an email, “We have always seen beyond of-the-moment trends and prioritise the importance of protein and whole grains in a healthy, balanced lifestyle.”
Banza, Lorissa’s Kitchen, Rich Foods, Barilla and BellRing, which owns Premier Protein, did not respond to requests for comment.
The food industry’s close relationship with dietitians was on full display last fall in Denver at the Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo, the world’s largest gathering of registered dietitians.
Dietitians waited in line to climb a giant yellow General Mills cereal box and slide into a bowl of plushie Cheerios.
At a symposium, General Mills shared the results of a survey it funded about “food shaming” - defined as “making people feel bad about what they eat”.
The company said the research showed food shaming led to lower self-esteem and eating disorders and made people more likely to avoid the cereal aisle in grocery stores.
Industry doubles down
General Mills has funded at least seven scientific studies since 2019 claiming cereals are beneficial to consumers’ health. One review found children who ate cereal, regardless of the sugar content, had healthier body weights than children who ate other breakfast food or skipped breakfast.
The company has spent more than US$2 million in 2022 and 2023 lobbying the federal government, according to data from OpenSecrets, a nonprofit group.
Efforts by the FDA to regulate food labels have sparked some of the fiercest opposition from General Mills and other leading cereal producers.
“They love putting ‘healthy’ in big, red letters,” Blumenthal said. “But when it comes down to the details – how much fat, how much sugar – they resist clarity like the plague.”
How anti-diet movement has been distorted
Anti-diet proponents have been fighting against weight bias and diet culture for decades. The movement now known as Health at Every Size (HAES), began in the 1960s as a grassroots effort in tandem with other civil rights movements to promote equal access to healthcare, said Ani Janzen, the operations and projects leader for the Association for Size Diversity and Health.
Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole, both registered dietitians, popularised the term “intuitive eating” with the publication of their 1995 book “Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach”. Intuitive eating urges followers to listen to their internal cues about hunger, and is frequently used to help people with eating disorders.
An analysis of 1500 TikTok videos using the hashtags #AntiDiet or #HealthAtEverySize by The Post and The Examination found the most commonly discussed topics included eating disorders, dieting and weight loss.
“Ice cream” was the top food item mentioned across the TikTok data set, with dozens of videos defending the dessert as unfairly demonised by society, the analysis found.
In some videos made by anti-diet dietitians, creators say no foods should be labelled “junk” or “unhealthy” because “all foods have value” while showing snacks like Cheetos or candy brands like Reese’s and Twix.
But leaders of Health at Every Size say their work has been distorted on social media. The hashtag #HealthAtEverySize is often used to promote body positivity or suggest that “you can be healthy at any size”. said Janzen.
“Health at Every Size” is really about how weight bias has created a healthcare system “that is harming fat people”, she said.
The wide appeal of HAES online allows it to be commercialised, said Angel Austin, interim executive director for the HAES association. “You have a lot of privileged people talking about Health at Every Size, unfortunately, because it’s profitable,” she said.
Resch, the co-founder of intuitive eating, said big food companies touting anti-diet slogans are “just trying to make more money, and intuitive eating has been co-opted”.
Lifting the burden of diet culture
Health experts say the most worrisome trend among anti-diet influencers is the alarming amount of misinformation they spread, including claims that excess weight isn’t a health risk.
“Most chronic diseases blamed on weight can most likely be explained by other phenomena, such as weight stigma and weight cycling,” wrote Christy Harrison in her influential 2019 book AntiDiet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, WellBeing, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating.
Harrison, a registered dietitian and podcaster, said in an email that if she were writing the book today, she would use “more nuanced language”. She maintained her opposition to “intentional weight loss”, and said she still believes “many” chronic diseases linked to weight have other causes, citing research documenting the harms of stigma and dieting.
Deaths caused by obesity, diabetes, liver disease and hypertension have climbed to record highs over the past 20 years, and conditions that once only afflicted older adults are increasingly present in young children.
Kevin C Klatt, a registered dietitian and research scientist and instructor at UC Berkeley, says anti-diet advocates who deny the connection between excess body fat and chronic disease have “made up stuff that is a fantasy and a total fairytale”,
Nonetheless, anti-diet influencers have found a growing audience among millennial and Gen Z viewers, many grappling with the food fears and restricted eating practised by their parents.
Casey Purlia Johnson, a fitness coach and social media influencer, said trying intuitive eating helped her develop a healthier relationship with food, after years of being obsessed with exercise and calorie restriction.
“We have all grown up around these crazy ideas about food,” Johnson said in an interview. She said her clients encounter a lot of misinformation around restricted eating. “They ask me on the phone, ‘Are you sure I can eat fruit?’”
While advocates say the anti-diet approach has brought a needed reprieve from the burdens of diet culture, others say the pendulum has swung too far, and the new anti-diet movement is hurting people at risk of health problems related to excess weight and a poor diet.
Misled by anti-diet messages
Rochon said she initially embraced a new ideology about nutrition after years of struggling with binge eating, weight loss efforts and hunger. Some of what she heard was based in fact. Studies show restrictive dieting can significantly slow metabolism, a condition that can persist for years.
Rochon grew to believe restricting food in any fashion would put her health in danger. Listening to mental hunger meant if she was thinking about a food, she should eat it.
“Your relationship with food would just get magically healed, if you just ate the doughnuts and ate the cookies and weren’t afraid of what you were eating,” Rochon said.
As her weight increased, it began to take a toll. The risk of humiliation while navigating crowds or fitting into seats made her afraid of going out.
When she attended a concert with her brother, climbing a flight of stairs was so difficult that it “stole my joy”, she said.
“As my body got bigger and bigger and bigger, I felt like my life just shrunk,” Rochon said.
She said health concerns prompted her to start watching YouTube videos that challenged what she described as the “indoctrination” of the anti-diet and fat acceptance movements.
“I’m definitely out of the movement,” she said. A few months ago, Rochon started her own YouTube channel, which has about 125 subscribers, in which she discusses her experience and her ongoing efforts to find a sustainable approach to nutrition. “I don’t want my parents to bury me,” she said.
Jacob Mey, a dietitian and nutrition researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana, said Rochon’s story is not unique. He said some of his clients have gained as much as 60 pounds in six months while working with anti-diet dietitians.
“It led them to get into the largest weight of their life,” Mey said. “The downside from a health perspective is exacerbating their obesity and potentially making worse their risk for other nutrition-related diseases.”