As the anti-diet movement has become more popular diet culture has contorted itself to fit the ‘done with dieting’ mentality. Weight watchers are no longer calling themselves a diet, Noom (definitely a diet) markets itself as ‘not a diet’ and there is the old favourite ‘it’s not a diet it’s a lifestyle change. All of this is bogus. If you are modifying your diet and exercising to lose weight, it’s a diet. Recently an account followed me and I went to check out their page as I normally do and found the following bio
“Life & Weight Loss Coaching for Mid-life Women who are Done with Dieting. I can help you lose weight, feel great and confident in your body forever’
Let’s get past the random capitalisation that makes no grammatical sense whatsoever and deconstruct what this is actually saying. First it says that they are a life and weight loss coach for middle aged women. Now, that all seems pretty clear even if it is rooted in diet culture. Then she goes on to say that it’s for people who are ‘done with dieting’ now this completely contradicts her first statement – if your goal is to help women lose weight through diet and exercise you are not ‘done with dieting’ in fact you are outwardly promoting it. Just because it doesn’t have a fancy name doesn’t mean it is not a diet. The final part is completely misleading. If your methods involve dieting and losing weight in order to ‘love your body’ you are simply going to fail. Dieting and losing weight is not a long term solution to body love or even body acceptance. So long as your self-esteem comes from losing weight or being a particular size you ultimately going to feel worse when you inevitably put the weight back on.
This brings me to my second point. Many people who are promoting these ‘lifestyle changes’ and ‘non-diets’ are ‘instagram influencers’ or ‘life coaches’ who have no qualification in health – dietetics or otherwise. So why is this important? health professionals such as dieticians, exercise physiologists or physiotherapists are regulated professions and we are obliged to practice in a way that is aligned with the professions standards and evidence. Instagram influencers are not regulated and thus can get away with saying almost anything. It’s how people like Pete Evans and Belle Gibson get away with what they do. Had either of them been a health professional regulating bodies would have cracked down on them. Instead they were able to make claims that they ‘cured cancer with healthy eating’ and that there is a light that ‘cures covid’. Instagram influencers and life coaches (both unregulated) often share misleading facts such as ‘dairy causes inflammation’ (it doesn’t – see this systematic review)or a certain food is ‘toxic’. Dr Tim Crowe, an advanced accredited practicing dietician critiqued this culture in his article ‘Broccoli is bad for you, like, really toxic bad’ where he demonstrates how ill-informed influencers, life-coaches and unfortunately some bad health practitioners may selective cite certain scientific articles, take the information out of context and labelling them as ‘toxic’ or selling them as ‘superfoods’
So lets get past the bullshit and acknowledge what these ‘lifestyle’ changes actually are and call them by their real name…diets.
The Inclusive Physio 