HOW TO FIGHT THE FADS

Eve and Laura share their anti-fad-diet advice

SCREW BODY-SHAMING CULTURE

Fad diets are dressed-up marketing schemes (for books and products) and our quest for thinness comes from a culture in which we are taught to hate ourselves in order to benefit businesses’ bank balances. As soon as we can identify the commercial root of these messages, and the body-shaming rhetoric that underpins them, we can begin to ignore them.

STICK TO SCIENCE

Listen to experts over bloggers with no nutritional qualifications. If you find yourself stumbling upon a news story about a certain food, check your sources. Is what you are reading based on a study? Could it have any bias – for example, was the person spouting the article paid to do so… by a diet company?

GET READING

Try books and recipes by nutribabble-buster Ruby Tandoh, whose celebratory attitude to everything edible is delicious and infectious. And the work of Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor on the Health At Every Size movement is a fantastic tool for freeing you from body-conscious thoughts.

HAVE AN INSTAGRAM AND TWITTER CULL Unfollow all the accounts that make your heart sink. You know the ones: the girl with the washboard abs/the account claiming that you should only eat plates of raw veg. BE KIND TO YOUR CRAVINGS

Often when you crave a certain food, there is a reason. Usually you are just hungry! If your body wants a jacket potato, then it probably needs it.