Thanks for all the dietary advice. Don't expect me to pay attention to any of it
Recently, we all got to have a laugh at bodily scented candlemonger and genital steamer Gwyneth Paltrow, after NHS England’s medical director felt moved to break away from fighting a pandemic to warn against following her advice. Paltrow had declared that according to a “functional medicine practitioner” the solution to her long Covid was a ketogenic plant-based diet with no sugar or alcohol and intermittent fasting. Prof Stephen Powis said these were “really not the solutions we’d recommend”. Silly Hollywood stars, with their ludicrous dietary advice handed down to complete strangers. Who would do such a thing?
Lots of people, as it happens. Last month, I wrote about my lovely osteoarthritic hip. Partly, I did so because I thought the challenge of trying to look after myself, combined with the lure of comfort eating in lockdown, was interesting. Partly, I wanted to explain why I might be seen limping about the place, like a broken slinky. I anticipated a mixture of eye-rolls, and perhaps a splash of sympathy. What I did not anticipate was the number of people who would take it upon themselves to send me unsolicited dietary advice. I already had a pain in the arse. I really didn’t need a bunch more of them.
There were those who emailed to tell me I could seriously do with losing body fat. Really? You think? Because I’ve always assumed I was the perfect weight for a man of my height. I constantly give thanks for the fact I’m 8ft 7in. Who reads about somebody else’s injury and thinks “You know, what I really need to do now is send this stranger an email telling them they’re fat”? What weird spasm of self-congratulatory joy does someone get from sending an email like that?
There are the ones who send you details of vitamin supplements they were prescribed by their wellness guru and which they swear by. Then there’s the woman who told me she spends a lot of her time “dealing kindly with folk who have health problems” – always ominous when someone feels the need to tell you they are kind – and that, as a result, they have learned that the solution to my problem is, pacePaltrow, a “whole food plant-based” diet. I replied that I was under the care of some terrific NHS doctors. “These are things they don’t teach in medical school,” she replied. Really? I wonder why.
All these interventions, along with the lure of free taster sessions from personal trainers trying to sign me up and the offer of a 20% discount at a private hospital, are bloody annoying. But there is a darker side to this unsolicited, ill-informed dietary advice. I have a dodgy hip. Eventually it will be replaced. I’ll be fine. But there are people with serious and life-threatening medical conditions who, understandably, can be desperate for any sort of glimmer of hope; who will be susceptible to dietary gibberish which won’t do anything for their condition but may leave them hungry, desperately carbdeprived and, as a result, even less well.
I have a particular loathing for a certain breed of Instagram-based guru; those young people with glossy hair and bright, white self-satisfied smiles, who are convinced their sparse, nutritionally unbalanced diet solved all their health problems when they just happened coincidentally to get better. They risk dragging other desperate young people into their eating disorders. Telling people what they should be eating, based on nothing but absurd self-confidence, self-importance and the ability to Google unalloyed cobblers, isn’t clever. It isn’t kind. And it certainly isn’t helpful. It’s nasty and it’s dangerous. And if you’re thinking of emailing me to argue differently, please don’t. You won’t like the reply.