The Return of You Are What You Eat and the Dangers of Diet Culture
Noughties diet culture served up some of the most toxic rhetoric regarding weight, propagating the most damaging body image standards in recent history…
Being dangerously underweight was glamorised, clothing trends thrived on excluding bigger bodies, and fatphobia was ubiquitous. Core to the spread of these ideals were the countless TV shows that utilised shock tactics to shame contestants into losing weight. Supersize vs. Superskinny, Secret Eaters and Fat Families were just a few of the many shows that cashed in on public hatred of fatness. In doing so, they exploited their contestant’s food-related issues and perpetuated self-hatred onto viewers at home who could identify with their behaviours.
Thankfully, shows like this are a relic of the past. Or so we thought. With the recent reboot of diet programme You Are What You Eat, it’s clear that we are regressing to a time that should have been long left behind. The show originally aired from 2004-2007, with infamous fake doctor Gillian McKieth taking the reins as host. The show’s premise revolved around using drastic shock methods to get participants to lose weight, from sweeping their cupboards clear of anything deemed ‘bad food’ to making a gravestone out of chocolate that brought a contestant to tears.
McKeith is best known for her fainting antics on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and her in-depth analysis of faecal matter, earning her the nickname of ‘poo lady’. Eventually, she was outed as lying about her medical credentials, and the show’s cancellation followed shortly after. A promoter of harmful pseudoscientific health and nutrition ideas, McKeith will not be returning to the reboot. She has been replaced by Trisha Goddard and Dr Amir Khan, who claim that the show has evolved past its original scaremongering tactics. Goddard claimed that “we are more aware now that if someone’s got a problem with food it’s usually a demonstration of something deeper”, and Kahn revealed that the show will have a more “scientific approach” than the previous instalment.
The new series attempts to rectify some of its predecessor’s mistakes by reducing the shock factor element, getting to the root of the contestant’s issues, and providing them with ways to work through them. But no-matter how much they try to improve their tactics; the very existence of the show is rooted in fatphobia and is deeply morally corrupt.
The promotional pictures of tables piled with junk food shows that shock tactics are not as far in the past as they claim, and the first episode of the show promises that this type of food is “killing us”. The episode also paints the portrait of being overweight as a state of misery. They continue to perpetuate the notion that being fat is bad, makes you sad, and makes you unhealthy. In reality, there is so much more to health than weight and body size.
The general consensus seems to be that what we consume determines how our body looks, and the bigger our body is, the unhealthier we are. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Various contributing factors determine our weight beyond food, including but not limited to physical activity, sleep, financial situation, mental health, previous history of dieting, chronic illnesses, media influences and so many more. These factors also contribute to our overall health- something that our physical bodies are not an indication of. A person is so much more than what they eat, making the show’s title and signature tagline a redundant phrase that should have been left in the noughties with Gillian McKeith.
We cannot underestimate the lasting damage noughties shows like You Are What You Eat had, and how irresponsible it is to bring them back. They exacerbated eating disorders on a large scale by encouraging people to consume unsustainably low calories. These shows are produced under the guise of promoting public health, when in reality they parade the misery of people who are struggling on television for entertainment. We live in an era where diet culture is constantly evolving to stay alive. It has changed platforms from Tumblr, to Instagram, to TikTok. Wherever we look, it’s hard to avoid unsolicited advice on all the things we should and shouldn’t be putting into our bodies. And now we have to contend with its return to television. Diet shows proliferated during the noughties and we cannot let this happen again.
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