If you have ever suffered through a dinner of zucchini noodles, allow me to offer my condolence.
Let’s be honest, we have all thought to ourselves, perhaps while elbow deep in a bag of Hot Cheetos, that we should probably try to eat healthier. We think about Kale Krunching Kayla’s YouTube video about how sugar is as addictive as cocaine. We remember Squating Samantha’s instagram post about how ditching carbs was the best thing she ever did, or Lettuce Lauren’s podcast on how going vegan cleared her acne, and we can’t help but wonder, “Should I start eating clean?”
The answer is a loud, emphatic, “NO.”
Don’t be fooled by pretty flat lays, zen yoga pics, and prancing girls in bikinis, eating clean is not a lifestyle. This whole clean eating diet is nothing short of just that, a diet. Sadly, like all other diets, eating clean comes a price that is steeper than a few missed lunch dates.
Diet culture is a dark and insidious beast, known to do far more damage than good. Aside from being found, scientifically, ineffective in producing results, it often leads to seriously damaging mental side effects. Unfortunately, obsession with food, crippling self-criticism, and body dissatisfaction are rarely listed ingredients on clean eating recipes.
At the very best, going on a clean diet will make you hyper critical of yourself, assign morality to different foods, and promote a deeply unhealthy relationship with food. Not only will you lack the promised results, the clear skin, the weight loss, the increased energy, the better sleep, but you’ll land yourself in a hopeless cycle of body dissatisfaction and food obsession.
Don’t fool yourself, Kayla, and Suzy, and Lauren, are not being 100% truthful. The people who are promoting diets, any diet, do not care about your health. They don’t care if you suffer from their recommendations. They don’t care if you see results. They care about turning a profit.
Don’t be enchanted by the round booties, dewy skin, and flat abs, and remind yourself that this is an industry. These people understand that their income is based on their ability to sell, and market, their bodies. Their body is their job and they will manipulate the image they are promoting you in whatever ways necessary to secure your purchase.
I urge you, my dear reader, to rise above the diet culture. Take control of your life, be a responsible consumer or information and media, and think about what the decisions you make now mean for you in future.
After all, do you really want to be 80 years old and still saying no to dessert?