As obesity rises, Big Food and dietitians push ‘anti-diet’ advice

At the Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo in Denver last fall, dietitians waited in line to climb a giant yellow General Mills cereal box and slide into a bowl of plushie Cheerios. MUST CREDIT: Joanna Kulesza for The Washington Post and The Examinationby Sasha Chavkin, Caitlin Gilbert, Anjali Tsui, and Anahad O’Connor, Washington PostJaye Rochon struggled to lose weight for years.

Online dietitians — many of them backed by food makers — also are building lucrative followings by co-opting anti-diet messages. Anti-diet hashtags, such as #NoBadFoods, #FoodFreedom, and #DitchTheDiet, have proliferated on social media. The anti-diet approach essentially shifts accountability for the health crisis away from the food industry for creating ultra-processed junk foods laden with food additives, sugars, and artificial sweeteners.Amy Cohn, General Mills’ senior manager for nutrition and external affairs, promoted the cereal company’s anti-diet messaging to a room of registered dietitians at a national food conference last fall.

Christensen didn’t respond to requests for comment. Smith said she only partners with brands that she uses herself and that align with her nutrition philosophy. Banza, Lorissa’s Kitchen, Rich Foods, Barilla, and BellRing, which owns Premier Protein, did not respond to requests for comment. The company said the research showed food shaming led to lower self-esteem and eating disorders and made people more likely to avoid the cereal aisle in grocery stores.

Efforts by the FDA to regulate food labels have sparked some of the fiercest opposition from General Mills and other leading cereal producers. An analysis of 1,500 TikTok videos using the hashtags #AntiDiet or #HealthAtEverySize by The Post and The Examination found that the most commonly discussed topics included eating disorders, dieting, and weight loss.

“Health at Every Size” is really about how weight bias has created a health-care system “that is harming fat people,” she said. Harrison, a registered dietitian and podcaster, said in an email that if she were writing the book today, she would use “more nuanced language.” She maintained her opposition to “intentional weight loss,” and said she still believes that “many” chronic diseases linked to weight have other causes, citing research documenting the harms of stigma and dieting.

Source: Healthcare Press (healthcarepress.net)

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