stop the food shaming

January 28, 2020

I've been talking about how our self talk can be shaming and make us feel bad and guilty for what we are eating.

But this post is actually geared towards the diet and health industry.

stop the food shaming

This is for those:



People selling a diet.
People selling shakes.
People selling cleanses.
People selling supplements.
People selling patches.

I am finding as my awareness of intuitive eating increases I am now noticing how much food shaming there is going on from social media.

I tend to be on instagram the most because I like the simplicity of it, but I don't like the guilt- trips.

Here are some of the posts I have seen that may seem like logic to the person making the post but are actually shaming to the people reading them.

"eat for the body you want, not the body you have"
"this isn't a diet, it's a lifestyle" - while all their posts talk about weight loss 
"natural energy, balanced blood sugar, reduced cravings, better sleep, weight loss, wake up refreshed, anti-inflammatory" - they are just trying to sell you something and are using pain points to appeal to you 
"you say you want to look better, feel better and live better...but you continue to eat like shit" - yup someone said that. How is that motivating? Tough love? 
"you are what you eat, so don't be easy, fast, cheap or fake." 
"junk food satisfies you for a minute, healthy food satisfies you for life." 
"looking to fit into your closed better? Be like your PC, don't accept cookies" 
"you can live in the gym, but if you don't eat clean you're wasting your time"

And it seems like every macronutrient is the enemy -

carbs are bad, sugar is addictive
protein is ok, but it should "lean" protein or plant-based
fat - go for the "healthy fats"

Even though I am a nutritionist, I just don't think our lives were meant to be stressing that much about the foods we are eating. I would love less noise on social media about "healthy eating" and diets, but I know that is a tall order to fill.
So I can only hope that through this blog and my own social media posts I can help cut through the nutrition noise and bad advice from so many health coaches out there with very little experience in the science of nutrition and help others to look at food differently and eat more intuitively.


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