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The Trouble with "Diet Advice", Even from a Top Dietitian

This week, I had the pleasure of being quoted on one of the fastest growing websites for women, BettyConfidential.com for an article titled, “Top Diet Tips from Top Dietitians.” With our extensive training, science-based curriculum, and standardized certifications, registered dietitians (those with an ‘RD’ after their name) are the nutrition experts. I was excited to see an article that featured diet advice based on science from my esteemed colleagues, not just hearsay advice from health nuts.

When the article went live, my quote on deceiving portion sizes was accompanied by this photo:

See the full article here:
http://www.bettyconfidential.com/ar/ld/a/More-Top-Tips-From-Top-Dietitians.html?pageID=3

My quote for people trying to lose weight to be more mindful of soda portions was visually represented by an extremely thin woman coving her face in despair at the numbers that she has just seen on the scale. Unlike the audience that I was requested to write for, this young woman does not need to lose weight. In fact, she could stand to gain a few pounds, and could add a few strength-training sessions to her exercise routine in order to build more muscle.

She is already thin and clearly very unhappy.

With an obesity epidemic raging around us, we are bombarded with messages of weight loss. In fact, half of America is on a diet at any given time. But an ironic and distracting problem exists in complete parallel to our obesity problem: we can never be thin enough and we can never be happy with our weight. When our happiness becomes so tied to our weight, and we are consistently shown images like this—a thin woman distraught over not seeing the numbers she wishes to see—we can never be thin enough to be happy.

In fact, it becomes normal to hate your body. It's a running joke in movies and sitcoms for the female characters to ask, "Does this make me look fat?" What happened to, "How awesome does this make me look?" We are just not ok with talking about our bodies in a positive or complimentary way, and when we do, people see us as cocky or egotistical.

We have created a culture around body hatred so that companies can sell us products. If we loved our bodies, what use would we have for the thousands of products that claim to tame, fix and reshape us?

I’m not encouraging people to accept obesity as a way of American life and just be “fat and happy.” I’m looking at our culture of thinness, our obsession with quick fixes, and our inundation in consumer products and diet advice. This is just one image of many. I hope you will do your part to counter the perpetuation of negative body image for yourself and your friends:

•	Embrace your unique physique. People are like trees; we are not all made to look exactly the same.
•	Don’t bash your body. No one talks to you as meanly as you talk to yourself. So BE NICER TO YOURSELF!
•	You are not a number. You are a living, breathing human being.
•	Don't compare yourself to images you see in magazines and on TV. And here is why:
	-	People in the media represent the body types of less than 5% of the actual population.
	-	Images are retouched to remove all signs of life like hairs and pores and all signs of aging. The models themselves don’t even look like their own photos. No photo that you see in print is unaltered.
	-	Professional models and celebrities have an entire staff to keep them looking that way (a chef, personal trainer, etc) and it’s their full time job to be beautiful.
•	Judge others on their personality traits, not their size. Overweight people take a lot of heat for their weight. The obesity epidemic is complex, rooted in government policy that has made bad food cheap and available everywhere. It is not a pandemic of lack of willpower. Put your energies toward establishing healthy habits and fighting for a better food system.

What do you think of this photo?