Is There Room For Nutrition In the Anti-Diet Space?

Let's practice what we preach

I left the anti-diet online space quite awhile ago, getting exhausted by how the nature of social media was negatively impacting an important social movement. Quick-bite posts and captions ultimately got regurgitated not just by followers, but by fellow clinicians, in contexts that were misunderstood and therefore creating misinformation. Followers desire for critical thinking quickly transformed into critical judgment and instead of the anti-diet movement breaking down dogma, it ended up creating it’s own dogma that parallels diet culture.

Don’t get me wrong, in theory I am still fully “anti-diet”, but I definitely think us clinicians need to make more careful considerations when we design our messaging. In an effort to galvanize a social justice movement, evidence-based messages have been reduced to digestible mottos that are removed so far from their context, they’re wrong.

Now doesn’t that sound like diet culture?

It all started with the kidneys

If you’re an anti-dieter you’ve heard it. I know you have. The prime motto to combat detoxes such as fasting, juice cleanses, and similar practices.

“You don’t need a detox, your kidneys already do that for you.”

Even dietitians will repeat this statement all over the internet despite it’s misleading nature. The statement isn’t necessarily wrong but the sentiment in which it’s written and read is incorrect. What anti-dieters mean to say with this statement, and sometimes do follow up with, is that there is little evidence to support the efficacy and safety of “detox” diets. This is supported by reviews conducted by the NIH and has consequently led to the FDA and FTC taking action against several companies that falsely claim the effectiveness of dangerous “detox” products and programs.

But even if the original poster (OP) follows up with a caption or article explaining such, the quick-bite statement gets recycled, regurgitated, and the context gets lost.¹ Consequently, the message is read by many as : any claims of practices that support detoxification are bogus. And that is objectively, scientifically, wrong.

Photo by Kaur Kristjan on Unsplash

Your kidneys are responsible for detoxification but they need to be supported to efficiently do their job just like any other organ. Would you expect your brain to think clearly if you didn’t get any sleep? We can’t expect our kidneys to efficiently prioritize their baseline duties if it’s also being unsupported or abused.

We can support our kidneys role of detoxification with adequate water intake, adequate sleep, stress management, regular and varied exercise, limiting environmental toxin exposure, avoiding excessive alcohol intake, and a balanced nutritious diet. So no the average healthy person doesn’t need extreme, depriving practices to “detox”, but you sure as hell can incorporate manageable practices in your daily routine to support the function of your kidneys. That should not be mistakenly denied.

We need to think about what people are hearing, not what we think we’re saying

Plenty of anti-dieters are well-educated and well-informed. However the way we deliver information is key. Experts hold a different worldview than the folks receiving their messages. The average person does not have the same wide range of information about a topic that an expert has. When presented with information, their tendency is either to deny or accept it. And if they want to investigate further, the resources accessible to them are often biased.

In contrast, us experts have more resources and information to help us conduct a more trustworthy investigation. If I’m presented with new nutrition information that doesn’t quite makes sense to me, I spend some time pulling from the filing cabinets of nutrition information in my brain and form a map to see if it does. If it doesn’t, I know what questions to ask and where to get those questions answered, and a higher capacity at correctly interpreting those answers.

In other words, if you teach the public “one way” to think, one message that is right or wrong for the sake of simplicity, they will run with it and take it to an extreme. Or, they’ll feel defeated and therefore indifferent. And plenty of anti-dieters have a tendency to share black-or-white messages.

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I’ve seen it happy countless times with some of my folks in recovery. Simple phrases to help ease folks anxiety over food end up become a source of misinformation such as “your body doesn’t know the difference between sugar from fruit and sugar from candy”. (oh em gee!!! I’ve heard DIETITIANS say this!!!! This statement alone would resurrect my biochem professors from retirement.)

I’m sure what they mean is that your body uses sugar for energy or for storage, regardless of it’s source. But what they are accidently denying is that varying types of sugar are metabolized differently. That matters.

And that’s the problem with many anti-diet messages…. just like diet culture messages…. just like public health messages. In an effort to target their audiences general concerns, they end up oversimplifying information to the point of misinformation.

Can we practice sentiment without denying science?

Again, I don’t want to create distrust toward clinicians, but I think we need to do a better job being more precise with our messaging. We have a tendency to be so concerned about the sentiment of our messaging, that we forget that people still have many gaps in their scientific knowledge that they want and deserve answers to. And if they don’t get answers from you, they will consult Dr. Berg.

We can teach nutrition and reject diet culture. We can teach nutrition and not deny science. Guess what?? We should be teaching nutrition in stages, building upon an individuals knowledge so they can become critical thinkers instead of critical deniers. We can teach people that pesticides are not inherently harmful but the excessive use of them in the U.S. is AND whether or not you consume them does not define your morality nor innately harm your health. Agreeing with some of the factual information that diet culture presents to us does not discount the anti-diet movement. We have the power to help people understand the messages they are receiving so why don’t we use it?

Anti-dieters claim ownership of cognitive dissonance, but struggle to practice it themselves

I really believe that anti-dieters are so afraid of fear itself, that their messages are biased with utmost confidence toward our food. Their goal is to protest oppressive food and medical systems, but they ultimately cherry pick which components of those systems they want to attack. They also tend to deny which parts of these oppressive systems they play into. That is not teaching cognitive dissonance nor critical thinking nor nutrition literacy. We can teach people how Walmart has disrupted local food systems, worsening poverty in affected communities and cutting access to fresh foods while normalizing needing to buy groceries from them because it’s the most accessible. We should teach folks the truth, its limitations, and how to hold the truth without it crippling their lives.

Anti-dieters also teach that there is no “good” nor “bad”, yet they accost folks all over the internet for holding any view that doesn’t completely align with theirs. Yes, there are diet gurus causing harm. Yes, American diet culture is rooted in white supremacy, misogyny, and fatphobia. And, it does not help anyone to simply deny information that comes out of the mouths of everyone doing the harm. HECK! Anti-dieters and bariatric surgeons are on the same g damn page regarding weight science!!!! We just choose take different actions in response to that information because our morals diverge. As experts we should be investigating information that doesn’t sound quite right and educating people about where it comes from so that they can make the best choice for themselves.

Oh - and when do we start acknowledging when our own personal victimization from diet culture is distorting the way we read and discuss science? Just a thought.

Dietitians: we can counsel. We can encourage clients to question and reject the diet mentality. But we also need to provide science and information. We need to not just preach cognitive dissonance and “nuance”, we have to practice it. Denying everything that diet culture preaches is not “nuance”, that is dogma. We need to teach people enough science in which they can understand where the misinformation in diet culture comes from and where the truth in the messaging lies.² We need to teach science to help people interpret the information they’re reading so they can think independently, critically, and without fear.

1. And truthfully, I’ve ever seen clinicians who seem to genuinely be misled by this statement.

2. Something I always tell clients is: nutrition messages in the media typically come from a source of truth, but tend to be taken so far out of context that it creates misunderstanding or misinformation.