Talking anti-diet messaging, Big Food, and sponsored posts on CBC’s The Current
The Washington Post recently published the results of their second of two joint investigations with The Examination looking “dietitian influencers,” dietitians who have a substantial following online where their income comes partly from sponsored posts.
Normally I don’t comment on stuff like this because I naïvely believe that people who don’t follow dietitians online don’t really care about this stuff, and others like Virginia Sole-Smith, Clara Nosek, Shana Minei Spence and Christy Harrison, just to name a few, had already written brilliant and thoughtful responses.
So when a producer from CBC’s The Current reached out to me to ask if I could give my perspective as an “anti-diet” dietitian in Canada, I…
…told her as much and sent her the articles that I just shared above, especially given that the CBC’s follow-up to the first WaPo/Examination investigation wasn’t friendly to dietitians either.
The producer assured me that she was aware of the articles and that this was just a conversation for “research and background,” so I agreed to chat with her. Our conversation seemed to focus more on the sponsorship piece from the article in the fall rather than pushing back against “anti-diet” messaging, and the producer reassured me that both her and The Current host had recently read Kate Manne’s Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia in preparation for a recent interview with her.
Hours of Preparation
Towards the end of our conversation, the producer said that she would reach out and let me know if they want me to be on air. After we hung up, I immediately typed up some of the broad points of our conversation and posted them to two weight-inclusive dietitian groups, asking if there might be talking points that I should add.
From there, my perfectionism and rejection sensitivity went into full throttle as I spent hours anticipating what would be asked of me and coming up with potential talking points, typing out a pages-long script of potential answers. It eventually reached the point that I had to remind myself that there was no way I could prepare “perfectly” and regardless of what I did, I would probably leave the conversation wishing I had said something differently.
Still, my hours of preparation paid off as since the segment aired I received lots of feedback that I was “well-spoken” and “articulate.” It’s because I was reading. 😅
The Interview
While the segment was originally planned to be live, the segment got pushed (I’m assuming because of OJ Simpson’s passing) and it ended up being recorded. I was able to sit in on the other two interviews with Caitlin Gilbert, one of the co-authors of the Washington Post article, and Alison Thompson, a bioethicist and associate professor at the U of T. I had a pretty good idea of Alison’s position because she had been interviewed by the CBC before, and I was pleasantly surprised by how she emphasized that it wasn’t just dietitians, and made a point that I had wanted to make about pay inequities for woman-dominated professions like dietetics.
For my part I thought the interview went pretty well, but as predicted there were things that I wished I’d said differently or points that I wanted to bring up, some of which I’ve been sharing on social media:
Washington Post Responding to the Backlash
One thing that I’ve found is that in this interview, on NPR and on TikTok, the co-authors of this article seem to be leaning in on the idea that this article is about “Big Food co-opting the anti-diet movement.” Granted, that is the title of the article, but that is not really how it lands at all. If this was really about Big Food, why are they analyzing a data set that only consists of dietitians? Why do they feature a General Mills hashtag that few people have seen before this article? If it was about Big Food co-opting anti-diet messaging, why aren’t they comparing the content of sponsored vs. non-sponsored posts?
In the interview on The Current, Caitlin Gilbert reveals that “part of the reason we did this follow up story was registered dietitians, some of whom are quoted in the story, reached out to us after our first story to say you need to be addressing this anti-diet movement…[Dietitians] who were getting increasingly concerned by, sort of the lack of nuance and some of the more extreme messages from their peers online. Concerned about people making really blanket statements about nutrition, like chronic diseases don't have anything to do with nutritional choices, or totally deny the connection between excess body fat and disease at a time when many diseases are at record highs in the U.S. right now”
First, this feels more like the real reasoning rather than concern about “Big Food co-opting the anti-diet movement.” They are obviously not concerned about anti-diet messages being co-opted if they don’t agree with anti-diet messaging in the first place.
While there are probably posts somewhere that say what Gilbert claims that they say, what is more likely being said is that food/nutrition doesn’t cause chronic disease and that high body fat and weight don’t cause disease. That does not deny the fact that these food, nutrition and weight are related to chronic disease, and any health provider or researcher will tell you that chronic diseases are caused by multiple factors, many of which are outside of individual control.
It’s also ironic that Gilbert would express concerns about blanket statements about nutrition, while the article makes a blanket statement blaming anti-diet messaging, the food industry and junk food for poor health: “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.accountability for the health crisis away from the food industry for creating ultra-processed junk foods laden with food additives, sugars and artificial sweeteners.”
Ultimately, articles and “investigations” like this shift attention away from what really matters when it comes to our health, which is inequity.
It’s the fact that we don’t all have easy, reliable and equitable access to affirming, non-stigmatizing quality healthcare that leads people to seek out nutrition and health information online in the first place. It’s the fact that we don’t all have easy, reliable and equitable access to clean, safe foods that nourish all parts of us that makes food, eating, and nutrition so fraught and confusing in the first place.
This is not saying that nutrition has nothing to do with health, but that it’s a drop in the pond compared to the many systemic barriers keeping us from all having access to the resources that we need to be healthy and well.