#diets

[mostlysignssomeportents]

General Mills and cheaply bought "dietitians" co-opted the anti-diet movement

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in NEXT THURSDAY (Apr 11) in BOSTON with Randall "XKCD" Munroehttps://cockeyed.com/lessons/viagra/viagra.html, then PROVIDENCE, RI (Apr 12), and beyond!

Steve Bannon isn't wrong: for his brand of nihilistic politics to win, all he has to do is "flood the zone with shit," demoralizing people to the point where they no longer even try to learn the truth.

This is really just a more refined, more potent version of the tactical doubt sown by Big Tobacco about whether smoking caused cancer, a playbook later adopted by the fossil fuel industry to sell climate denial. You know Darrell Huff's 1954 classic How To Lie With Statistics? Huff was a Big Tobacco shill (his next book, which wasn't ever published, was How To Lie With Cancer Statistics). His mission wasn't to help you spot statistical malpractice – an actual thing that is an actual problem that you should actually learn to spot. It was to turn you into a nihilist who didn't believe anything could be known:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#harford

Corporations don't need you to believe that their products are beneficial or even non-harmful. They just need you to believe nothing. If you don't know what's true, then why not just do whatever feels good, man? #YOLO!

These bannonfloods of shit are a favored tactic of strongmen and dictators. Their grip on power doesn't depend on their citizens trusting them – it's enough that they trust no one:

http://jonathanstray.com/networked-propaganda-and-counter-propaganda

Bannonflooding is especially beloved of the food industry. Food is essential, monopolized, and incredibly complicated, and many of the most profitable strategies for growing, processing and preparing food are very bad for the people who eat that food. Rather than sacrificing profits, the food industry floods the zone with shit, making it impossible to know what's true, in hopes that we will just eat whatever they're serving:

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2003460

Now, the "nothing can be known" gambit only works if it's really hard to get at the truth. So it helps that nutrition and diet are very complex subjects, but it helps even more that the nutrition and diet industry are a cesspool of quacks and junk science. This is a "scientific discipline" whose prestigious annual meetings are sponsored (and catered) by McDonald's:

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/05/my-trip-mcdonalds-sponsored-nutritionist-convention/

It's a "science" whose most prominent pitchmen peddle quack nostrums and sue the critics who point out (correctly) that eating foods high in chlorophyll will not "oxygenate your blood" (hint, chlorophyll only makes oxygen in the presence of light, which is notably lacking in your colon):

https://www.badscience.net/2007/02/ms-gillian-mckeith-banned-from-calling-herself-a-doctor/

When the quack-heavy world of nutrition combines with the socially stigmatized world of weight-loss, you get a zone ripe for shitflooding. The majority of Americans are "overweight" (according to a definition that relies on the unscientific idea of BMI) and nearly half of Americans are "obese." These numbers have been climbing steadily since the 1970s, and every diet turns out to be basically bullshit:

https://headgum.com/factually-with-adam-conover/what-does-ozepmic-actually-do-with-dr-dhruv-khullar

Notwithstanding the new blockbuster post-Ozempic drugs, we're been through an unbroken 50-year run of more and more of us being fatter and fatter, even as fat stigma increased. Fat people are treated as weak-willed and fundamentally unhealthy, while the most prominent health-risks of being fat are roundly neglected: the mental health effects of being shamed, and the physical risks of having doctors ignore your health complaints, no matter how serious they sound, and blame them on your weight:

https://maintenancephase.buzzsprout.com/1411126/11968083-glorifying-obesity-and-other-myths-about-fat-people

Fat people and their allies have banded together to address these real, urgent harms. The "body acceptance" movement isn't merely about feeling good in your own skin: it's also about fighting discrimination, demanding medical care (beyond "lose some weight") and warning people away from getting on the diet treadmill, which can lead to dangerous eating disorders and permanent weight gain:

https://www.beacon.org/You-Just-Need-to-Lose-Weight-P1853.aspx

Fat stigma is real. The mental health risks of fat-shaming are real. Eating disorders are real. Discrimination against fat people is real. The fact that these things are real doesn't mean that the food industry can't flood the zone with shit, though. On the contrary: the urgency of these issues, combined with the poor regulation of dietitians, makes the "what should you eat" zone perfect for flooding with endless quantities of highly profitable shit.

Perhaps you've gotten some of this shit on you. Have you found yourself watching a video from a dietitian influencer like Cara Harbstreet, Colleen Christensen or Lauren Smith, promoting "health at any size" with hashtags like #DerailTheShame and #AntiDiet? These were paid campaigns sponsored by General Mills, Pepsi, and other multinational, multibillion-dollar corporations.

Writing for The Examination, Sasha Chavkin, Anjali Tsui, Caitlin Gilbert and Anahad O'Connor describe the way that some of the world's largest and most profitable corporations have hijacked a movement where fat people and their allies fight stigma and shame and used it to peddle the lie that their heavily processed, high-calorie food is good for you:

https://www.theexamination.org/articles/as-obesity-rises-big-food-and-dietitians-push-anti-diet-advice

It's a surreal tale. They describe a speech by Amy Cohn, General Mills’ senior manager for nutrition, to an audience at a dietitian's conference, where Cohn "denounced the media for 'pointing the finger at processed foods' and making consumers feel ashamed of their choices." This is some next-level nihilism: rather than railing against the harmful stigma against fat people, Cohn wants us to fight the stigma against Cocoa Puffs.

This message isn't confined to industry conferences. Dietitians with large Tiktok followings like Cara Harbstreet then carry the message out to the public. In Harbstreet's video promoting Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs and Trix, she says, "I will always advocate for fearlessly nourishing meals, including cereal…Because everyone deserves to enjoy food without judgment, especially kids":

https://www.tiktok.com/@streetsmart.rd/video/7298403730989436206

Dietitians, nutritionists and the food industry have always had an uncomfortably close relationship, but the industry's shitflooding kicked into high gear when the FDA proposed rules limiting which foods the industry can promote as "healthy." General Mills, Kelloggs and Post have threatened a First Amendment suit against such a regulation, arguing that they have a free speech right to describe manifestly unhealthy food as "healthy."

The anti-diet movement – again, a legitimate movement aimed at fighting the dangerous junk science behind dieting – has been co-opted by the food industry, who are paying dietitian influencers to say things like "all foods have value" while brandishing packages of Twix and Reese's. In their Examination article, the authors profile people who struggled with their weight, then, after encountering the food industry's paid disinformation, believed that "healthy at any size" meant that it would be unhealthy to avoid highly processed, high calorie food. These people gained large amounts of weight, and found their lives constrained and their health severely compromised.

I've been overweight all my life. I went to my first Weight Watchers meeting when I was 12. I come from a family of overweight people with the chronic illnesses often associated with being fat. This is a subject that's always on my mind. I even wrote a whole novel about the promise and peril of a weight-loss miracle:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781429969284/makers

I think the anti-diet movement, and its associated ideas like body acceptance and healthy at every size, are enormously positive developments and hugely important. It's because I value these ideas that I'm so disgusted with Big Food and its cynical decision to flood the zone with shit. It's also why I'm so furious with dietitians and nutritionists for failing to self-regulate and become a real profession, the kind that censures and denounces quacks and shills.

I have complicated feelings about Ozempic and its successors, but even if these prove to be effective and safe in the long term, and even if we rein in the rapacious pharma companies so that they no longer sell a $5 product for $1000, I would still want dietary science to clean up its act:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2816824

I'm not a nihilist. I think we can use science to discover truths – about ourselves and our world. I want to know those truths, and I think they can be known. The only people who benefit from convincing you that the truth is unknowable are the people who want to lie to you.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/05/corrupt-for-cocoa-puffs/#flood-the-zone-with-shit

#pluralistic #corruption #nutrition #food #diets #dieticians #nutritionists #junk science #junk food #astroturf #fat acceptance #fatphobia #health #nihilism #steve bannon #flood the zone with shit #general mills #dietitians

[brendape]

#soy una gorda #diario de una gorda #me siento gorda #quiero ser flaca #ansiedad #ana e mia #desahogo #ana y mia #calorías #comida #bul1m1c #bulimima #diets #estoy gorda #no quiero ser gorda #meme #im fat and disgusting

[mysharona1987]

When even the celebrities openly acknowledge it is terrible but will make money so they still endorse it.

#ozempic #amy schumer #healty #diets #news

[thoughtportal]

one of the most insidious things about diet culture is that it steals the joy from food and movement

telling people to do things from a place of shame

#tiktok #diet culture #salad #diets

[anabutterfl7]

I made this diet inspired by the foods I try to avoid

#anor3c1a #thinsi #thinsperation #thinspp #thinspø #tw thinspi #tw €d #£d #€d #€d memes #diets #ed dieta #weight loss diet #low cal diet

[thisisthinprivilege]

Since I keep seeing "$61 billion weight loss industry"....

This is a super old figure, folks.

In 2022, the US market cap of the weight loss industry was $75 billion [1, 3]. In 2021, the global market cap of the weight loss industry was estimated at $224.27 billion [2].

In 2020, the market shrunk by about 25%, but rebounded and then some since then [1, 3] (Tell me thin privilege is socially constructed without telling me that thin privilege is socially constructed).

Also disturbing, "Multi-level marketing companies constitute a major force in the [US] weight loss market, with the top 8 firms accounting for $3.4 billion in 2020 sales. Included in this group are Medifast, Herbalife, Shaklee, BeachBody, AMWAY, USANA, Isagenix and more." [3]

By 2030, the global weight loss industry is expected to reach be valued at $405.4 billion [2].

-ATL

References

LaRosa, J. March 10, 2022. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Shrinks by 25% in 2020 with Pandemic, but Rebounds in 2021." Market Research Blog. Available here.

Staff. February 09, 2023. "[Latest] Global Weight Loss and Weight Management Market Size/Share Worth." Facts and Factors Research. Available here.

LaRosa, J. March 27, 2023. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Partially Recovers from the Pandemic." Market Research Blog. Available here.

#statistics #fat discrimination #weight loss #weight loss industry #fat liberation #diet culture #dieting #diets #FAQ

[ten-e-bris]

Hi! Do you have any tips to stop your stomach from growling? Hunger itself doesn't bother me, but fuck, when it makes noise during classes, or when I'm at work, volunteering, wherever the fuck, people stare. my teacher asked me if I wanted a sandwich. and no, drinking water doesn't work. maybe some pills? thanks;)

#motylki #dieta #diets #ed diet plan #tw ed but not sheeran #lose weight fast #calorie deficit diet #i wanna lose weight #low cal diet #nie chce jesc

[ramonag-if]

Hi Ramona! Long time listener, first time caller lol. I’ve been a big fan of CoE since you started it. Love the story and the setting. Also really like the intrigue of the most recent updated demo. Also wanted to say my go-to romance is usually Irus but I decided to switch it up and romanced Oren this last play though. I’m a changed woman, Ramona!! 🙌Oren’s route is so sweet and romantic and soft and thank god he’s got his head on straight because my MC does not with her no lmao. I also had some questions about CoE.

1. What will Dena be like as a RO? Any hints?

2. What are the basic food staples/diets of each country? We have seen foods from Vinia and I’m hungry every time I read them, but what about others?

Thank you so much for your support and I'm really pleased that Oren could win you over with his soft and gentle love 😊

I can't tell you for certain what Dena will be like since I normally just write as I go. Dena genuinely cares about the MC so they will be somewhat protective of the MC. As for the rest, you'll find out when I find out which is when I write their romance route 😅

That is a very good question! I answered a long way back so this might differ from then. Vinia: A mix of Ishari cuisine, seafood and lots of vegetables and red meat - out of all the regions, Vinia has the most diverse diets and food staples. There's a range of salts, spices and herbs that are used to season different dishes to give it a unique 'Vinia flavour'. Ishari: A lot of flatbreads, rice, spices and curries. Most of the meals made are cooked with what's available so meat and vegetable versions of the same dish are common. The food tends to be spiced and fragrant. Cyre: Cyre's cuisine is mostly seafood near the coast, but more inland, there's more meat (not seafood) available so the dishes will vary depending on the area. In places like Salt Bay, fish stews, grilled seafood and broths were the norm but in places more inland (and closer to the palace), you'll find lamb, vegetables and different types of cheese and breads available. Look hard enough and you'll also find variations of Ishari cuisine scattered about. Southern Islands: The Southern Islands are a lot like Vinia in that the cuisine is influenced by the different regions and traders that visit the islands. You'll find food from Cyre, Vinia and Ishari in the Southern Islands along with foods from elsewhere like the Nomad Tribes.

I didn't think anyone would really care about the different foods mentioned in the game, so I hope this answers your question! 😊

#crown of exile #answered asks #siroren #princeirus #diets #food

[lxccs-x]

We were eating pizza for dinner and just as i took another slice my mum went "this is good, you're eating a lot again, the doctor will be happy your appetite is back"...

Took two bites and put the slice down, it tasted disgusting to me after that.

Like, thanks for making me feel like a shitty fucking pig woman.

#ana miaa #anadiet #low cal restriction #no food #tw s3lf harm #styroblr #tw self destruction #diets

[elaboha111]

Rhythmic gymnastic diet :) You can loose 1-4 kg (2-9 lbs)

#butterfly #ballet #rhythmic gymnastics #ana diets #low cal diet #diets #skinnni #beauty #weight loss

[sotiredsthings]

Did anyone else really struggle with January??

Starting over in February! I'm fasting until I lose all the weight I gained last month

#ed meals #tw ana diary #tw ana trigger #tw ed diet #memesdaily #memes #diets #exercise #pro for me not for thee

[brendape]

#ansiedad #quiero ser flaca #ana e mia #desahogo #ana y mia #calorías #comida #bul1m1c #bulimima #diets #soy una gorda #me siento gorda #diario de una gorda #estoy gorda #no quiero ser gorda #gorda imunda #meme

[brujaluas]

I'm doing yoga to lose weight and other exercises and having great results, along with some diets, as well as studying pilates in the future and I wanted to create a youtube channel to show these processes, would it be a good idea?

#weight loss #that girl #weight loss diet #diets #exercices #yoga #yogainspiration #yogaposes #yogamotivation #yogadaily #meditation #social media #influencers #vlog

[voidoffline]

Having pots and needing to eat more salt makes learning about health and dietary needs funny.

Like yes, yes I know book. I am well aware all you puny mortal can not intake more than two and half thousand mg of salt.

I am miles above you. I am a salt god. Cower beneath my reign.

You are all puny compared to me. You can only consume so much salt lest you die? I have to eat over five thousand salt to not die, so have fun with your caged life style you vermin’s

#actually disabled #disability #pots #pots syndrome #diabled #small rant #salt #salt the seasoning #food #diets #pots diet

[moinomun]

i need some cute little silly diets without liquid fasting with a minimum calorie content of 600 😭😭 please send some

#i wanna lose weight #i wanna be tiny #i just want to be thin #ed bullshit #i want to ⭐️ve #i need to lose so much weight #weight loss #tw ana diary #calories #diets

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Do you not eat chickens? /g

I'm a vegetarian, actually! I have been probably since I was a kid. I think I got it from Lex in JP, no kidding. I don't remember the last time I willingly ate meat. I do know what chicken tastes like, though, because people are mean and I've been tricked into eating meat multiple times. And its overhyped! like, I don't get why so many people can't give up the homophobic chicken restaurant, for example. it's just chicken.

That said, before people make assumptions about me: I don't eat meat because I don't have to and it's a way for me to feel ethical about my food habits in addition to trying to buy food from ethical sources. I have never and WILL never insist that it's the right diet for everyone, because it isn't. My spouse eats meat all the time and we get along just fine.

And before vegans get at me for not being vegan: I am allergic to the vast majority of protein substitutes, I need dairy to live, trust me on this. See the "there is no one diet that is the correct ethical choice for everyone" theme in the second paragraph of this post.

#about the blogger #vegetarianism #veganism #diets #food