Book is an inside look at health and diet industry
AFITNESS coach has written a book she claims exposes the dark side of the health and diet industry.
Heather Wynn has been part of the industry her whole working life but says she almost gave up her career two years ago because of the damage it does to women’s mental and emotional health.
Her book, ‘Enough Already’, is a guide to stepping away from the obsession of yo-yo dieting, which Heather, who has suffered from orthorexia, an obsession with eating foods one considers healthy, says it is vital to do for mental and emotional wellbeing.
The 34-year-old, who lives on Tarn Mount in Macclesfield with her husband Paul and provides online fitness coaching for women, said: “The book is about finding happiness now in a world that wants to sell you perfection later.
“I spent more than 17 years coaching women how to get into ‘better’ shape, witnessing daily the underhand tactics, dangerous practices and body-shaming methods the fitness and diet industries use to keep people coming back and it got to the point where the whole industry was making me mentally and physically sick.
“Coaches will actively encourage clients so they get physical results but then they can be left with eating disorders because they’re just not happy in themselves.
“It got to where I was having almost daily panic attacks and if I went to a new restaurant I’d have to vet the menu and wouldn’t eat the food if it was cooked a certain way or had a certain oil on it, but orthorexia is easy to hide as people just class it as ‘clean eating’.”
Heather wrote the book in six months while living in Marbella, where she has family. Working as a coach on the Sky 1 documentary series: ‘Obese: A Year to Save My Life’, was, she says, the seed of the idea for the project.
She said: “In the series I worked with a girl who lost half her body weight and that was classed as a success, but these people need more.
“When I started to write it all just came flooding out, like writing a diary in a way.
“I think social media is responsible for a lot of body issues. When I was younger you’d see airbrushed photos in magazines but now even your neighbour’s photos are airbrushed. How do young girls know what’s real or not anymore?”
The book comes out on September 1 and is available to pre-order at amazon.com for £11.99.