Recently, whilst publicising her latest diet book, unbearably smug radio personality and all-round irritant Fearne Cotton revealed that she had secretly suffered from bulimia for around 10 years. She said that she was ‘no longer afraid’, and hoped that in speaking out she would encourage others to do so. I suppose her honesty at opening up should be praised, and certainly the reaction has been generally positive. But in truth, I have struggled with this story and the media response to it.
Although listening to Cotton on the radio generally makes me want to lance my eardrums with a hypodermic syringe, I understand that she has astonishing popularity and reach, giving her the ability to spread a positive message that might just remove some of the stigma surrounding these conditions. But I cannot get over the fact that she is just one of a troubling succession of diet book authors who have disseminated prescriptive food advice whilst suffering from an eating disorder. She may not be the worst offender, but she is perhaps the highest in profile, which makes writing critically about her full of risk. When friend of the blog ‘Not Plant Based’ covered the story in less than glowing terms, the author received a torrent of abuse on social media. […]
So great, let’s have a fucking conversation. Let’s talk openly about our problems. But if we are going to do that, let’s not shy away from discussing the huge dietary revenue stream that feeds on the food insecurities of others. The lucrative rhetoric that drives people towards disorder, and keeps them held within its grip. The restrictive diets and magical food thinking that Cotton and others in the industry have spent years encouraging. The eating patterns that can prove fatal if they take hold in vulnerable minds.
Let’s also talk about the concerns of dietitians and eating disorder professionals that are so often blithely dismissed by the authors and publishers of these books. The people that work for months with patients only to have their hard work overturned by a dismissive comment from an influencer that a packet of crisps or a chocolate bar is toxic and doing them harm. Let’s talk about the books and articles that Cotton has written about food, telling countless young people exactly how to eat and what to restrict. Let’s explore her back catalogue, and talk about which parts of it should be immediately withdrawn from sale if she really cares about people’s mental wellbeing. Let’s have a conversation about the pointless, tortured and restrictive food mantras she has spent years preaching. Although she should never be judged for what her illness drove her to, perhaps she should be judged for not looking back and considering the harm this might have done to others.
More.
The woman who invented ‘I Quit Sugar’ had an eating disorder for a decade. Struggled writing this as it feels v uncomfortable to expose another woman but I felt someone has to in aid of the thousands of followers who replicate her eating 1/2 https://t.co/kBHBCxKVXx
— Eve Simmons (@EveSimmns) September 22, 2019
George Carlin;”I don’t wanna eat”.
Sorry just another screw up who insists we validate their existence.
Remember Dr Spock? International Expert of raising children?
With none of his own!
The gullible and stupid will always rush to reward those who tell them what they want to hear.
Wait, are you saying all these food, gun control, environmental, etc. activists are just hypocrites with a laundry list of their own internal problems they project onto others to control their lives because they can’t control their own?
That guy: EXACTLY!!
and, pile on the FACT a huge %age of canaduhians *believe what they want to believe*.
gawd it’s astounding how well propaganda works to this day.
mix in a wee bit of widely know actual truth, rinse and repeat ad nausium via e-v-e-r-y means available.
You listen to the Canada Food Guide, you get Ancel Keys, it’s your own damn fault. Endof story.
Think for yourself. Own your own life.
yep. I watched the TVO thing I think it was, about how SUGAR ‘took up the slack’
resulting in a truly epidemic of obesity.
and getting worse with the advent of ‘apps’ that exercise the thumb and nothing else.
how many times you SDA folks have watched a 400 pound lardass go *one bus stop*? hmmm?
regarding diet, Im a friggin glutton. but, BUT I am LUCKY my metabolism developed living in a house
lacking insulation and central heat, aka, jeepers, I must be an eskimo, better pack it on when I can esp fat,
Im gonna need it. Well, guess what, way into middle age I was STILL burning off the calories in body heat.
I dropped down to *176 pounds* in October by sheer willpower spread over about 5 years.
fcuk sugar.
I like to cook and entertain around food. I have a pretty good selection of cook books. Books written by fat guys and gals who live to eat, Paul Prudhomme types.
I dont need some neurosis riven person on a mission from hell explaining how I should eat tasteless recipes made of tree bark and grass clippings. Give me some big Italian Moma who falls asleep at night not dreaming of some don Juan DeMarco but of starting to cook with 2 pounds of butter, 3 cups of goose fat and lard…lots of lard. That’s my kinda cooking something that is going to explode flavor.
The wankers who write this twaddle have forgotten a very important fact:
Chocolate is a FOOD GROUP!
for a nutritious unbalanced diet!
Perhaps we should take up a petition to ban stupidity…in cookbooks.
Find your own bleedin’ recipe!
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht – Commander in Chief
Army Group “True North”
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
“and lard…lots of lard”
We used to render the fat of a couple pigs a year and everything was fried or cooked with butter or cream. We ate an embarrassingly large amount of food and none of us were fat because we had 2 modes – work or sports. On bright winter days I’d go on 5 mile walks in the snow shooting squirrels for spending money. We had a park 5 miles away through the bush and probably did the trip on foot or bike 10 times per summer. I did sit on my duff at school but for 12 years played sports every noon.
Yum! Because I’m half French … I love butter. Sweet cream butter (unsalted). I won’t get within 25ft of margarine. Margarine is death. We weren’t meant to eat it … uh, oh, now I sound like the mentally ill food policia!
Margarine is an edible petroleum product – no?
I’ve never ever allowed it in my house.
We have so much idle time and idle wealth. The richest, safest, most peaceful society the world has ever seen has formed a vast army of neurotics.
If they are attractive then they get followers and book deals.
We eat better than the kings of old. Yet many feel compelled to tell us what to eat ad nauseum (and to make a couple of bucks).
The first to rush to the table for a solid dietary scolding are those who, annoyingly, are on voluntary post-apocalyptic diets (vegans and echo-warriors).
Only spoiled Caucasoid women seem to get eating disorders. Negroid and Mongoloid women never do.
To put it another way, only women whose mothers and grandmothers no longer remember doing backbreaking farm work or wondering where their next meal was coming from play for unmerited attention like this.
Money, once again, is not the root of all evil. It’s women who don’t know when they’re well off.
My Niece volunteered to work on a HOPE medical ship sailing from port to port in Africa giving free medical and dental care. She was a vegan prior to the trip, but was told in no uncertain terms, there will be NO veganism on the trip. They won’t cater to that diet, and was told it was the pinnacle insult to the poor people of Africa who would trade their left hand for a quarter pounder burger. She was told to leave such 1st world, white girl, nonsense at home … or don’t come on the trip. She went on the trip, and subsequently ‘got over’ her stupid liberal virtue signaling dietary nonsense.
She has a history of idolising certain foods as health panaceas and demonising others as harmful. These are exactly the sort of insidious messages that play on the minds and health of eating disorder sufferers.
I stopped reading after this deadly accurate statement. However, let me add: these insidious messages play on the minds of the otherwise healthy minds as well.
When I get a little tight around the waistline I just quit eating for a couple days.
It’s the easiest way to drop 5 lbs.
I’m from saskatchewan so it’s easy for me.
“makes me want to lance my eardrums with a hypodermic syringe”–yikes. Has the writer got an anger management problem or a writing problem?
I looked at the Angry Chef website. Looks like a recipe for metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes in one’s 50s) and eventual cardiovascular disease.
Saying something like “sugar is okay, too much sugar is not okay” is tautological. “too much” of anything is not okay–that’s what “too much” means. Without operationalizing with contexts, forms (degree and nature of processing), amounts, meal composition, food ordering in a meal, etc., it’s simply propaganda for the status quo. Or as the research scientists I speak with say, “The road to metabolic hell is paved with ‘everything in moderation.'”
Let’s start with the effect of post-eating elevated blood sugar (above 5.2 mmol/L) on the glycocalyx along the walls of arteries and the effect on vascular health and the fact that cadiovascular disease is still the number one cause of premature death–that, at least, would be starting from a foundation of science.
It’s not that hard: eat a balanced diet, get regular exercise, drink in moderation, don’t smoke and do up your seat belt. After that, it’s pretty much beyond your control.
There hasn’t been sound mainstream dietary advice in 50 years, let alone from cook book sellers.
Sugar and grains should be avoided. Eat a low carb, sugar free diet. Everything else is bs.
I’ll make a recommendation. I have this cook book.
Fat:
An appreciation of a misunderstood ingredient with recipes by Jennifer McLagan