(forbes) According to The Global Wellness Institute, the global wellness industry was worth $4.7T to the global economy in 2017. Within this, the nutrition and weight loss sector attributes $702 billion to that figure.
Unsolicited nutrition advice is EVERYWHERE. From newspapers to instagram “models”, everyone is sharing their latest weight loss miracle. A well-known women's magazine recently ran the social media headline “six porridge mistakes that could be setting you up for weight gain”.
This basically translates as “yes you’ve made a good choice with porridge but you’re still not good enough”.
Science Vs Celebrity
Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop empire, which holds a big piece of the wellness wealth pie, has beautifully proven that ‘wellness’ is not centered around scientific fact but around branding, marketing and celebrity endorsement.
As if that’s not challenging enough, when healthcare professionals speak out against poor and potentially dangerous nutritional “advice”, they are met with responses such as "outdated research" and "you were taught wrong". Or everyone's new favorite "fake news".
The consequence this has on our healthcare system is suboptimal to put it politely. Those who are actually engaged with their health are constantly saturated by conflicting messages from social media.
More importantly, those who actually need to engage with their health feel that achieving optimum nutrition requires an extreme form of dedication.
To them, visiting the gym 13 times a week, cutting out carbs and having a side of self-loathing with every meal is (understandably) not achievable. This can easily mean that people slip into apathy, because if they can’t be “perfect” then what’s the point?
To the wellness industry, avocado on toast (gluten free because gluten is evil*) is the ultimate meal. The cost of one days worth of avo on toast is the same as a weeks worth of cereal and milk. What does that say to those who can’t afford the perceived luxury of wellness?
Healthy Eating or Orthorexia?
Demonising foods or referring to foods as ‘sins’ is not creating a healthy relationship between people and their diet. Dietitians recognise this to be a particular risk for those vulnerable to personifying themselves according to their eating behaviour. This practice is now only too common in every office and friendship group where there will almost always be a self-appointed nutrition guru (who bought a one day nutrition course on Groupon…if you’re lucky).
It may all start with taking an interest in “clean eating” which then leads to cutting out different food groups because Ella told you to. Such a restrictive diet can lead to canceling dinner plans with friends. Before you know it, your entire salary is converted into supplements and you spend your weekends in Whole Foods worshiping the wellness gods. This obsession with healthy eating to the detriment of your mental and physical health is called orthorexia and rates of diagnosis have never been higher.
The polarisation between different ‘food tribes’ only perpetuates dietary imbalance. Those believing a ketogenic diet is the only solution for weight loss will vilify those including carbohydrates, those following a vegan diet will demonize the paleo crowd and vice versa. This is leading to more extreme dietary imbalance and ultimately poorer health for everyone.
Achieving Balance
The truth about achieving optimum wellness is that it requires high-quality sleep, excellent stress management, moderate exercise, and a well-balanced diet. If you're obsessing with one area of your life, you will be neglecting others. If your exercise regime sacrifices too much sleep or your dietary habits cause you anxiety around social eating, you will never achieve optimum wellness.
Trained and regulated healthcare professionals will never push extremely restrictive diets or condemn particular foods. Research always leads back to the importance of a well-balanced diet with plants, lean protein, pulses and whole grains. This advice isn't outdated, we still say it because it is still true.
People who are apathetic to their health will say “they’re always changing their minds anyway so if they can’t decide what we should be doing why should I change?”. The conflicting messages are driven by toxic wellness.
Not from evidence-based nutrition. Their voices are just louder.
Festive Feasting
It is well understood that community and culture are focused around food. On the lead up to Christmas, the toxic wellness community is spreading messages about avoiding traditional food and how to prevent weight gain over the festive period. These articles ought to be titled:
“top ten ways to isolate yourself and food-shame your friends and family this Christmas”.
If they’ve indoctrinated you effectively, your self-esteem will be low enough in January for you to fall for buying their detox products that will do nothing but cause diarrhoea.
Ironically, our health and well-being would be much better if we simply took a detox from the wellness community. With everyone wanting a slice of the $702 billion (gluten free and low carb) pie, it is unlikely that there will be much of appetite for significant change.
2018 has been a year filled with lemon water, apple cider vinegar, activated charcoal, teatoxing, appetite suppressant lollipops and celery juice, yet the obesity epidemic is only worsening. The latest miracles of 2019 remain to be seen but no doubt it will provide plenty of content for healthcare professionals to rant about.
*Gluten isn't evil
