Whenever these conversations come up, I tend to say nothing because unlike influencers I don’t think my anecdotal experience is something to broadcast to the world, and I hold highly nuanced views on the subject, which tend not to work for either the influencer or the anti-wellness industry groups. I’m definitely on board with how the wellness industry profits off anti-fatness and diet culture. I teach about this myself. I also think this is an area where it’s more challenging to explain where, how and why they are wrong.
My experience is being diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome at age 7. I had chronic, awful stomach aches as child and I had extensive tests (upper and lower GI, ultrasounds and more). In 1989, the best the doctor could do was tell my mother that I would need to learn to live with it, which I did for many years. Fast forward to 1999, I got my gallbladder removed, which tends to make some people need to use the bathroom more quickly after eating. My turn around time was already 15 minutes so I didn’t notice much difference. In 2007, I couldn’t eat anything without severe pain and spending hours in the bathroom. I spent all day in bed for a month. I couldn’t go to work or do much of anything. It was awful, debilitating and scary.
What makes what helped hard to explain is how language has been co-opted by the wellness industry. I didn’t do an elimination diet, and I wouldn’t recommend one to anyone. What I did do was find a book for people with IBS with a list of foods for when you can’t eat anything. I ate only the foods on that list for a month because before that anything I ate was making me miserable. This wasn’t an elimination diet but a reintroduction of food “diet.” It definitely wasn’t a diet because I didn’t care how much I ate or about anything except not feeling awful after eating and lots of the foods on the list are demonized by the diet industry.
Once I got back to feeling better, then it was about reintroducing other foods one at a time to see what I could tolerate. This is where the language of food sensitivity particularly was useful for me. There are only 3 foods that I found really elicited a violent reaction. Everything else was either fine or something that I needed to be thoughtfully about what else I ate with it and how much. Not portion control but just so that I had enough other food that wasn’t an issue to “cover it.” Because I don’t want to mention specific foods, let’s pretend people often eat wood chips and rocks. Sometimes separately, sometimes together. For me, wood chips feel great. But rocks hurt if I eat them by themselves. If I have some wood chips with some rocks mixed in, I’m usually fine. I can have a big bowl and everything is great. This is how I used food sensitivity to explain to people who were cooking for me or picking a restaurant, what I eat. It’s still complex because if I feel really stressed, then I might feel like any rocks aren’t a good idea for lunch but be fine with having some later for dinner. These should be relatable concepts but when it’s tied to a medical condition I’ve found people are very reluctant to believe one’s understanding of their own bodies (especially fat people’s) unless they’re trying to capitalize off of that concern. So a lot of people just think I’m weird and picky and making it up whereas others want to sell me a magic fix it.
As someone dedicated to fat liberation, I’m not sticking up for the wellness industry or any of their destructive practices like elimination diets that are embraced by the medical establishment too. I just want people to know that when we talk about what it means to actually have a food sensitivity or medical issue sometimes the only people who are willing to listen are other people with these experiences. And some of those people are selling things that are part of this industry. Who or what do you turn to when you can’t eat anything without pain and your doctor says to learn to live with it? I feel lucky that I found a book that was helpful to me and that I could ignore the wellness industry stuff in that book. I rarely recommend anything to people in my situation and if I do (3 times in my life), it’s been to people really struggling who I could have a candid conversation with about these pitfalls and more.
I’ve written this long comment because I think people in the messy middle, which may be more than a few, are left out. General statements validating that we exist are important. But if we only focus on the scams and the successful medical solutions, we’ll miss the people who have been failed by both.
As a fat liberationist, I want to be able to see this as totally black and white. The wellness industry IS preying on people’s suffering (including too many medical establishment folks). It’s just not the whole story, which is - when they are the only ones offering solutions, and we must cobble together our own methods of survival. Opting out entirely may not be an option and that is another way that anti-fatness fails us.
Appreciate this nuance! It does seem like "food sensitivity" could have been a useful term that has been badly coopted by the wellness industry (for anti-fat purposes). I'm glad you found a way that works for you .
I really appreciated this, as I'm also a bit in the "messy middle." I'm in a different boat but I have an autoimmune disease that (as I learned just recently) means I'm more likely to develop sensitivities to certain kinds of foods — but as you say, it's SO much more complex than just "never eat XYZ." I was fortunate to work with an anti-diet RD who helped me navigate the experimentation phase in a thoughtful and careful way (when I suggested keeping a food journal because I was worried I couldn't remember how things affected me, she said, "Okay, if you think it's best, but try not to do it for more than a week or two."); and who focused much more on adding variety to my diet for better gut health than she did on trying to get me to eliminate foods. I feel so much better now, and so much less fearful of food. And frankly, "bloating" was a huge issue for me, but not in an anti-fat way; in a "I feel like my stomach is going to explode, and moving and breathing and literally everything hurts" way!
Messy middle here too, wrote a longer top level comment further down. I find it confusing because eliminating XYZ for a short period had a huge effect on my baby’s symptoms and quality of life, but that high stress period with a suffering child also left me with a fear of eating the wrong thing. Was the elimination of XYZ helpful? Yes. Was it also harmful? Also yes.
The messy middle absolutely does need more exploration. And elimination diets can be necessary for infant food allergies/intolerances -- those are legit! The problem is, these tests don't help you figure that out and (as Melinda reported) may well lead you to cut out way more foods that aren't the issue.
Thank you for this comment! Occasionally (not this article) the anti-diet world can feel a little condescending toward those of us with chronic illnesses.
So, you are saying that I *should* worry about heavy metal toxicity because I let my toddler get a job at that smelting factory (all the chimneysweep jobs were taken, alas)? Wow, really feeling judged for my parenting choices here today.
Honestly, you've covered this already, but I still feel like the worst thing in this whole space is that people still believe the sugar=hyperactive, behavior issues myth and make fun food experiences so fraught and weird.
This was the newsletter I didn’t realize I needed this badly. It is so so hard to shake the food sensitivity question in the back of my mind whenever I eat wheat or drink milk. I know I can eat these foods but I still always hear that rhetoric of “your joints will hurt. You’ll be gassy. Etc.”
I went off gluten a few years ago and I’ve since added it back in. Turns out my chronic stomach issues were not something I could control with food because they were from chronic anxiety of completing grad school and my counseling internship. If I had only eaten more bread (and cake!) and practiced actual stress reduction, I think my life at that time could have looked really different.
Thank you for your work to remind us that food is food, it is good and we need it.
I could just RAGE about the literal BS moms are dealing with. I work in postpartum and breastfeeding care and try all the time to subvert the crappy hand being dealt to women. A good friend who lost her father to cook cancer, and has her own host of digestive woes, gallbladder out, cuts out all the things.... told me last week her gastro told her to just go on ozempic. I literally can't anymore with the madness.
I have a 9 month old and therefore I am in the middle of the baby food instagram craziness. As a first time mom I had no idea this would be so tricky and triggering. It is this perfect iceberg of social media fearmongering driven straight at the anxieties of new parents. What I find interesting is that at the heart of this barrage is this idea that as a parent, I am single handedly responsible for developing my child physically, emotionally, and everything else-ally. Not that they have their own little body that has it's own genetic code of when teeth will appear or walking will commence. No, I have to be an expert in a thousand new things and do baby PT and OT, sleep gymnastics training, sign language to teach them "all done", gentle infant emotional regulation, aesthetic sensory play, and by god all the picture perfect BLW plates that will serve them 100 foods before one. Each one of these social media fads has lurking in it parental blame for child obesity and why there feels like so much pressure to develop my child before anything "bad," like fatness, creeps in. It is exhausting. I am so tired. I am also sure as hell going to count "cat food" as one of my 100 foods because baby got a hold of some earlier today, and that is the only one I'm counting!
I did BLW with my 12 year old (and her two younger siblings) and I've been so disappointed to see the way that it's moved from a vibe of "babies can eat the same food their families eat" to something that just seems like so much extra work. I tried it back in the day because it seemed like the least amount of work, and a way to eat with my baby instead of having to feed my baby, and now it seems to be shorthand for something completely different.
(And my youngest definitely helped herself to some dry cat food at a friend's house as a one-year-old. Floor snacks!)
This topic is one that makes me so ragey and I’m glad you explored it. I am an adult with ADHD and regularly hear that I need to stop eating dairy. Or carbs. Or maybe if I wouldn’t eat food with colors or sugar or food I wouldn’t have ADHD. And it’s dangerous thinking. I’d rather not cut whole food groups out of my diet (except for the individual foods I’m actually allergic to. Like mangoes. 😭). I feel like it’s a way to control women/mothers and to sell us stuff and tell us all the ways we are doing it “wrong.”
There are studies - really good ones - that basically show ADHD is 100% genetic. Literally has NOTHING TO DO WITH LIFESTYLE/PARENTING and yet we are told to fix ourselves/our kids we should make a ton of life changes instead of just saying "oh, my brain processes that differently than yours, here is how it is most helpful for me to _______" people with ADHD don't need to be fixed they are not broken.... just need different tools than people without ADHD. Hah I am enraged about this in case you can't tell, it is such BS
My dad, sister, I, husband and at least my oldest, jury’s out on 4 yo all have ADHD. Like of course we do, it’s genetic! Some of us cope better than others and my husband still wants to act surprised when our 6 yo acts like he has ADHD. And I’m just like yeah we are aware he has a brain difference, he is improving with his emotional regulation and executive functioning but he’s 6. Like this is going to be a long process! And no I haven’t noticed anything being any “better” from restricting food. He might be AuADHD, we are going to get him evaluated because we think he masks with people outside his family- if anything it’s already so many steps just to choose a safe food that’s within the fairly limited diet of my kids without cutting out entire food groups! My youngest did have a bad reaction to eggs at 9 mo in March 2020 and I was panicking about having to even go to ped those first few weeks of pandemic- cutting out one food was awful! He ended up being able to eat it baked in by 1 and his allergy resolved by 2 but bc it was restricted for so long, he still doesn’t eat them at 4.
Those infant food allergies are super common and legit and an ENTIRELY different animal than the "food sensitivity" concept. (And also plenty hard to deal with, of course!!)
Yes 100% a true allergy is serious and is another reason I get so frustrated with the "sensitivity " stuff because I think it has the unfortunate effect of making people less cautious when someone says they have an allergy, which is dangerous for people with true allergies!
My kid has food allergies(confirmed by an allergist and he gets hives and throws up if he eats the foods, it’s legit) and has adhd. He’s allergic to wheat, eggs and dairy! So all the diet might help adhd make me rage so much. You are making yourself and your kid miserable for no benefit! My kid has never eaten these foods and still adhd! I’m also very glad the having friends with babies and having to suffer through a lot of supporting other struggling moms to young kids/babies that have convinced themselves that their fussy baby or toddler is having problems with milk or gluten. They cut it out and then add it back in a month or two later and everything is fine. It’s hard not to be so eye ropy about it, your kid had a fussy phase, it wasn’t food related but society is obsessed with the idea that we can fix our kids from normal behavior and development.
Wasn't there a whole Red Dye causing ADHD scare in the '90s? But come on, to tell someone food can fix them, insinuating you caused your ADHD by not eating correctly. So dangerous and damaging.
Yes, my mom was intense about it, and yet I’m adhd, bc I was born that way! (She’s very accepting of me in that way.) It is making a comeback. As a parent I can say I hate red food dye bc it’s really hard to get out of the carpet…
Not to mention that for me, ADHD makes it harder to eat anyway! Eating is boring, I get distracted and forget, and my meds that make life better suppress my appetite. Sugar and food dye are not the problem.
Correct. I also had a therapist tell me that carbs actually do make us feel better emotionally, and that it was important to do things that make me feel better, so if that means eating bread or pasta, go for it. I don’t know if I appreciated at the time how much that message meant to me, but it was such an important reframe of the role that food should play and that my mental health was part of and as important as my physical well-being.
The "wheat sensitivity" trend was happening just as I was diagnosed with celiac, which made it a giant ass-pain to ask for what I needed without sounding like every other "wheat is toxic" person. My two kids also are diagnosed celiac, and when wheat is actually bad for your family, it really, really sucks to be lumped in with the diet culture people.
A toddler bloating?! When I say I got rage tears, I am not exaggerating. Blowing raspberries on my kids "bloated" tummies is one of the highlights of parenting.
This newsletter is so triggering for me because of a weird grief I have over my father. For context, my stepmom is Queen of the Diet, especially trying to draw correlations between food and symptoms. I will give her that alcohol, especially red wine, probably does make her migraines worse. But I don't think the non-organic chicken (verses organic, free range) is giving her cat a skin reaction (not kidding here, she actually believes this).
So when my dad was dying, he had cancer and was in and out of the hospital with different symptoms and issues (as is normal), my stepmom started restricting his food. He still ate what little he could stomach, got as many calories as we could in him, but he couldn't have what he wanted because it would aggravate his symptoms. A man who loved food. No Wendy's cheeseburger, no whiskey, no beer, no BBQ sauce, no potato chips (his favorite), NO FLAVOR. I made him bone broth from scratch, since this was acceptable, and made it taste like pho, so he got some flavor at least. I think part of this was denial over terminal cancer, but even so, you're so miserable already, why make it worse? When he finally passed, I was so sad he spent the last months of his life in a flavor desert because she was so steadfast in her beliefs, and he listened to her. I'm still sad for him.
Verses my grandmother, who just asked for whiskey from a spoon, and we gave it to her whenever she wanted.
The levels of BS, control and fear mongering targeting women and their health. It makes me so angry.
Also when my infant started having reflux symptoms, our PED suggested I cut out dairy. I did, for a month, with no change in the baby. So they suggested I cut out soy. I said no, and asked for a prescription of reflux meds for her (white, middle class, medically confident, privilege here). Guess what resolved the reflux symptoms. And I got to keep eating without guilt or fear.
I’m so sorry. My uncle died October 2022 and he had been restricting his eating a ton after the recurrence of his brain cancer- the last month of his life when he was released to hospice care he did eat whatever he wanted. The waves of grief have been hitting me strong here in August (around the time last year his symptoms returned after surgery in April), thank you for sharing your heart and grief with us.
My mom is a huge believe in food sensitivity, which I'm realizing contributed to my sense that my then-4-yr-old's stomach issues could be caused by food. And the "holistic" pediatrician we were seeing at that time totally endorsed that possibility -- so I put my friggin preschooler on an elimination diet and then wondered why, by the time she was 8, she was making up food rules ("sugar makes my stomach hurt") that eventually turned into full-blown ED. Literally no one suggested that those early stomach pains could've been anxiety, which seems SO clear in retrospect.
I found my 8th grade journal 😬 and I spent a lot of time talking about chronic stomachaches around my crushes- like yes that’s anxiety 14 year old me. It’s like no one ever mentioned the word to me! I didn’t have super restrictive eating as a teen but I was known to throw whole sandwiches out or skip lunch when I was feeling anxious or jealous.
I took pictures of my harmed by diet culture thoughts- the person who ended up being my high school bf is a year older than me and he didn’t want to be a couple when I wasn’t in high school yet- in 8th grade I wrote a few times he was going to fall in love with a skinny prettier girl 😅 I was straight size my whole life until after my second kid was born and I had a great friend group and good relationship with my family growing up but so much anxiety tied into people will like me more if I am skinnier. I hated seeing evidence I had internalized fat phobia at 14! Thank you for all your work Virginia, it is so important! My husband started reading Fat Talk last night after many times of me telling him important this work is for parents. ❤️
The way elimination diets prolonged me getting actual treatment for my Crohn's Disease, putting my body in grave danger...
It was never cranberries, night shades, onions, anything not made from almond flour, etc. Turns out it was fucking stress from believing that I had control over my body versus a powerful autoimmune disease and the untenability of being a public school teacher in the US.
Here for the rage 100%. There is a special place in hell for people who prey on parents, particularly new parents, who are already intensely vulnerable. Here is another area where the 360° social media industry has made it possible for snake oil merchants to hawk their "solutions" to what might or might not be actual problems. The really insidious piece is that this gets into people's heads, where the pressure to be a perfect parent is already enormous, and often unfairly shared in a relationship, concentrating it. The anxiety of this pressure is enough in itself to cause myriad physical and emotional effects, all playing off one another to make people feel crazy and miserable, just for doing the best they can. I agree: this round of preying on parents is especially dangerous.
FWIW, from a saging elder who has been through this shit: Shut down socials for a week. Use that time to NAP. You can do this with your little one/s if needed. Human history supports you with thousands of years of experience. Ask for help and alone time. Make yourself some calming tea, and go outside and find some nature: you know where, even in a city. Close your eyes and listen to the birds or other sounds around you. Smell the air—is it grass, flowers, is there rain coming? There is no wrong way to do this. You are doing a wonderful job because it is clear how much you care. That is enough. It is more than enough. Breathe. Know that you are loved. Repeat.
As someone with a diagnosed auto-immune disease, I get these recommendations all. the. time. Cutting out gluten is a blanket recommendation, consistently. As are those IgG tests, especially in patient-run support groups. It's extra frustrating for me because, turns out a lot of the GI stuff happening was 1, stress, 2, not eating enough, and 3, my gallbladder was a trash fire. But none of that got addressed for a long time because the focus was on getting me in to orthorexia.
And of course now they're doing it to kids. It's absolutely an extension of how screwed up parenting is in the US and how we view it, AND "the war on ob*sity", which has recently moved to prescribing unresearched drugs and surgeries to children, permanently altering their growning bodies, AND misogyny in medicine. It's f*cked up.
Thanks for this piece - and sharing the companion piece!
I’m a first time mom and naively joined a non-toxic parenting Facebook group (aka glorified anti-vaxx club). Not only was I horrified to see so many parents (mostly moms) ask strangers on the internet to confirm their small child’s (fill in the blank) food sensitivity as causing anything from poor sleep to rashes to seemingly serious medical problems. Just cut out eggs/gluten/wheat/soybeans/blah blah and your child’s problems will disappear! I understand the allure of such a “simple” solution to the myriad issues that arise from being a parent to a small human and wanting to feel in control, but it’s scary how many kids are being raised on the advice of unqualified internet evangelists.
One trend I would like a closer look into: The mom-guilt over how our family diets impact the environment. And the fear over single-use plastic -- no more Ziplocs, now moms should wash everything (resealable baggies, cloth napkins, class/steel lunch containers).
Hmm yes. Not sure I'm ready for the internet trolls if I argue in favor of single use plastic! But you are right, it has created yet more (mostly maternal) domestic labor.
I am a person who actually does wash out her ziplocks etc, but I also fully understand that single use plastic saves lives. Full stop. There is no safe healthcare without single use plastic. Many folks with disabilities cannot live without single use plastic (like straws! another hot button). I would love our focus to be on better alternatives to single use plastic that are reasonable and affordable rather than blaming moms (as always) or putting more labor on them. Because there is a huge percentage of dads, I would guess, who would not even consider washing out a ziplock or reusable silicone bag. Systemic not individual solutions, always.
Can we look into the placebo effect with food restriction/ food sensitivity. I.e.: you don't feel better physically when you cut out xyz, you feel morally superior or smug. You're out of touch with your body bc you've listened to so much noise and rules and diet culture all your life, so when you read something that tells you you are doing a good job if you cut out xyz, or that you will feel good if you cut out xyz ... it's the gold star that feels good, not your actual body.
This was fascinating. When my kids were little (early aughts) we of course didn’t have access to over the counter food sensitivity testing, so certain people were sure their kids had food allergies. I have a family member who was forever restricting her toddler’s food. The “bad” foods changed a little every time we saw them, but wheat and dairy were always no-nos. It was frustrating to be with them because of all the food issues.
This intensive mothering climate sucks for everyone. To try to chase this mythical “ideal mom” we are working so hard to try to make sure we don’t screw up our kids. And we’re told no detail is too small to ignore, so sure, micromanage your children’s food. Isn’t your child worth it? Ugh!!!!! I’m so glad this newsletter and the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter exist and that people are talking about how harmful this all is. My kids are grown, and I’m STILL fascinated and horrified by what this culture demands of moms.
I remember this so clearly. There was so much pressure to attribute everything kids did to what they ate (too bouncy? Tsk, sugar. really smart? must be the fish! ) and it was a whole way to make (mostly moms) not trust themselves and judge one another- and fear that we were not adequately optimizing our children! Ugh, what a time. And it was all made up.
Whenever these conversations come up, I tend to say nothing because unlike influencers I don’t think my anecdotal experience is something to broadcast to the world, and I hold highly nuanced views on the subject, which tend not to work for either the influencer or the anti-wellness industry groups. I’m definitely on board with how the wellness industry profits off anti-fatness and diet culture. I teach about this myself. I also think this is an area where it’s more challenging to explain where, how and why they are wrong.
My experience is being diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome at age 7. I had chronic, awful stomach aches as child and I had extensive tests (upper and lower GI, ultrasounds and more). In 1989, the best the doctor could do was tell my mother that I would need to learn to live with it, which I did for many years. Fast forward to 1999, I got my gallbladder removed, which tends to make some people need to use the bathroom more quickly after eating. My turn around time was already 15 minutes so I didn’t notice much difference. In 2007, I couldn’t eat anything without severe pain and spending hours in the bathroom. I spent all day in bed for a month. I couldn’t go to work or do much of anything. It was awful, debilitating and scary.
What makes what helped hard to explain is how language has been co-opted by the wellness industry. I didn’t do an elimination diet, and I wouldn’t recommend one to anyone. What I did do was find a book for people with IBS with a list of foods for when you can’t eat anything. I ate only the foods on that list for a month because before that anything I ate was making me miserable. This wasn’t an elimination diet but a reintroduction of food “diet.” It definitely wasn’t a diet because I didn’t care how much I ate or about anything except not feeling awful after eating and lots of the foods on the list are demonized by the diet industry.
Once I got back to feeling better, then it was about reintroducing other foods one at a time to see what I could tolerate. This is where the language of food sensitivity particularly was useful for me. There are only 3 foods that I found really elicited a violent reaction. Everything else was either fine or something that I needed to be thoughtfully about what else I ate with it and how much. Not portion control but just so that I had enough other food that wasn’t an issue to “cover it.” Because I don’t want to mention specific foods, let’s pretend people often eat wood chips and rocks. Sometimes separately, sometimes together. For me, wood chips feel great. But rocks hurt if I eat them by themselves. If I have some wood chips with some rocks mixed in, I’m usually fine. I can have a big bowl and everything is great. This is how I used food sensitivity to explain to people who were cooking for me or picking a restaurant, what I eat. It’s still complex because if I feel really stressed, then I might feel like any rocks aren’t a good idea for lunch but be fine with having some later for dinner. These should be relatable concepts but when it’s tied to a medical condition I’ve found people are very reluctant to believe one’s understanding of their own bodies (especially fat people’s) unless they’re trying to capitalize off of that concern. So a lot of people just think I’m weird and picky and making it up whereas others want to sell me a magic fix it.
As someone dedicated to fat liberation, I’m not sticking up for the wellness industry or any of their destructive practices like elimination diets that are embraced by the medical establishment too. I just want people to know that when we talk about what it means to actually have a food sensitivity or medical issue sometimes the only people who are willing to listen are other people with these experiences. And some of those people are selling things that are part of this industry. Who or what do you turn to when you can’t eat anything without pain and your doctor says to learn to live with it? I feel lucky that I found a book that was helpful to me and that I could ignore the wellness industry stuff in that book. I rarely recommend anything to people in my situation and if I do (3 times in my life), it’s been to people really struggling who I could have a candid conversation with about these pitfalls and more.
I’ve written this long comment because I think people in the messy middle, which may be more than a few, are left out. General statements validating that we exist are important. But if we only focus on the scams and the successful medical solutions, we’ll miss the people who have been failed by both.
As a fat liberationist, I want to be able to see this as totally black and white. The wellness industry IS preying on people’s suffering (including too many medical establishment folks). It’s just not the whole story, which is - when they are the only ones offering solutions, and we must cobble together our own methods of survival. Opting out entirely may not be an option and that is another way that anti-fatness fails us.
Appreciate this nuance! It does seem like "food sensitivity" could have been a useful term that has been badly coopted by the wellness industry (for anti-fat purposes). I'm glad you found a way that works for you .
I really appreciated this, as I'm also a bit in the "messy middle." I'm in a different boat but I have an autoimmune disease that (as I learned just recently) means I'm more likely to develop sensitivities to certain kinds of foods — but as you say, it's SO much more complex than just "never eat XYZ." I was fortunate to work with an anti-diet RD who helped me navigate the experimentation phase in a thoughtful and careful way (when I suggested keeping a food journal because I was worried I couldn't remember how things affected me, she said, "Okay, if you think it's best, but try not to do it for more than a week or two."); and who focused much more on adding variety to my diet for better gut health than she did on trying to get me to eliminate foods. I feel so much better now, and so much less fearful of food. And frankly, "bloating" was a huge issue for me, but not in an anti-fat way; in a "I feel like my stomach is going to explode, and moving and breathing and literally everything hurts" way!
Messy middle here too, wrote a longer top level comment further down. I find it confusing because eliminating XYZ for a short period had a huge effect on my baby’s symptoms and quality of life, but that high stress period with a suffering child also left me with a fear of eating the wrong thing. Was the elimination of XYZ helpful? Yes. Was it also harmful? Also yes.
The messy middle absolutely does need more exploration. And elimination diets can be necessary for infant food allergies/intolerances -- those are legit! The problem is, these tests don't help you figure that out and (as Melinda reported) may well lead you to cut out way more foods that aren't the issue.
Thank you for this comment! Occasionally (not this article) the anti-diet world can feel a little condescending toward those of us with chronic illnesses.
So, you are saying that I *should* worry about heavy metal toxicity because I let my toddler get a job at that smelting factory (all the chimneysweep jobs were taken, alas)? Wow, really feeling judged for my parenting choices here today.
Honestly, you've covered this already, but I still feel like the worst thing in this whole space is that people still believe the sugar=hyperactive, behavior issues myth and make fun food experiences so fraught and weird.
Yes, I get the kids shouldn't eat sugar advice all the time -- even from my husband.
Yes! This is so frustrating. Kids running around on a holiday cues the "It's the sugar!" from all the grandparents.
This was the newsletter I didn’t realize I needed this badly. It is so so hard to shake the food sensitivity question in the back of my mind whenever I eat wheat or drink milk. I know I can eat these foods but I still always hear that rhetoric of “your joints will hurt. You’ll be gassy. Etc.”
I went off gluten a few years ago and I’ve since added it back in. Turns out my chronic stomach issues were not something I could control with food because they were from chronic anxiety of completing grad school and my counseling internship. If I had only eaten more bread (and cake!) and practiced actual stress reduction, I think my life at that time could have looked really different.
Thank you for your work to remind us that food is food, it is good and we need it.
Such a useful perspective, thank you!
Always here for complaining about the insane stress of graduate school.
I could just RAGE about the literal BS moms are dealing with. I work in postpartum and breastfeeding care and try all the time to subvert the crappy hand being dealt to women. A good friend who lost her father to cook cancer, and has her own host of digestive woes, gallbladder out, cuts out all the things.... told me last week her gastro told her to just go on ozempic. I literally can't anymore with the madness.
Very here for this rage!!
I have a 9 month old and therefore I am in the middle of the baby food instagram craziness. As a first time mom I had no idea this would be so tricky and triggering. It is this perfect iceberg of social media fearmongering driven straight at the anxieties of new parents. What I find interesting is that at the heart of this barrage is this idea that as a parent, I am single handedly responsible for developing my child physically, emotionally, and everything else-ally. Not that they have their own little body that has it's own genetic code of when teeth will appear or walking will commence. No, I have to be an expert in a thousand new things and do baby PT and OT, sleep gymnastics training, sign language to teach them "all done", gentle infant emotional regulation, aesthetic sensory play, and by god all the picture perfect BLW plates that will serve them 100 foods before one. Each one of these social media fads has lurking in it parental blame for child obesity and why there feels like so much pressure to develop my child before anything "bad," like fatness, creeps in. It is exhausting. I am so tired. I am also sure as hell going to count "cat food" as one of my 100 foods because baby got a hold of some earlier today, and that is the only one I'm counting!
Oh my god, I just cackled at cat food. Babies!!
I did BLW with my 12 year old (and her two younger siblings) and I've been so disappointed to see the way that it's moved from a vibe of "babies can eat the same food their families eat" to something that just seems like so much extra work. I tried it back in the day because it seemed like the least amount of work, and a way to eat with my baby instead of having to feed my baby, and now it seems to be shorthand for something completely different.
(And my youngest definitely helped herself to some dry cat food at a friend's house as a one-year-old. Floor snacks!)
This topic is one that makes me so ragey and I’m glad you explored it. I am an adult with ADHD and regularly hear that I need to stop eating dairy. Or carbs. Or maybe if I wouldn’t eat food with colors or sugar or food I wouldn’t have ADHD. And it’s dangerous thinking. I’d rather not cut whole food groups out of my diet (except for the individual foods I’m actually allergic to. Like mangoes. 😭). I feel like it’s a way to control women/mothers and to sell us stuff and tell us all the ways we are doing it “wrong.”
THIS: it’s a way to control women/mothers and to sell us stuff and tell us all the ways we are doing it “wrong.”
There are studies - really good ones - that basically show ADHD is 100% genetic. Literally has NOTHING TO DO WITH LIFESTYLE/PARENTING and yet we are told to fix ourselves/our kids we should make a ton of life changes instead of just saying "oh, my brain processes that differently than yours, here is how it is most helpful for me to _______" people with ADHD don't need to be fixed they are not broken.... just need different tools than people without ADHD. Hah I am enraged about this in case you can't tell, it is such BS
My dad, sister, I, husband and at least my oldest, jury’s out on 4 yo all have ADHD. Like of course we do, it’s genetic! Some of us cope better than others and my husband still wants to act surprised when our 6 yo acts like he has ADHD. And I’m just like yeah we are aware he has a brain difference, he is improving with his emotional regulation and executive functioning but he’s 6. Like this is going to be a long process! And no I haven’t noticed anything being any “better” from restricting food. He might be AuADHD, we are going to get him evaluated because we think he masks with people outside his family- if anything it’s already so many steps just to choose a safe food that’s within the fairly limited diet of my kids without cutting out entire food groups! My youngest did have a bad reaction to eggs at 9 mo in March 2020 and I was panicking about having to even go to ped those first few weeks of pandemic- cutting out one food was awful! He ended up being able to eat it baked in by 1 and his allergy resolved by 2 but bc it was restricted for so long, he still doesn’t eat them at 4.
Those infant food allergies are super common and legit and an ENTIRELY different animal than the "food sensitivity" concept. (And also plenty hard to deal with, of course!!)
Yes 100% a true allergy is serious and is another reason I get so frustrated with the "sensitivity " stuff because I think it has the unfortunate effect of making people less cautious when someone says they have an allergy, which is dangerous for people with true allergies!
Absolutely!!
My kid has food allergies(confirmed by an allergist and he gets hives and throws up if he eats the foods, it’s legit) and has adhd. He’s allergic to wheat, eggs and dairy! So all the diet might help adhd make me rage so much. You are making yourself and your kid miserable for no benefit! My kid has never eaten these foods and still adhd! I’m also very glad the having friends with babies and having to suffer through a lot of supporting other struggling moms to young kids/babies that have convinced themselves that their fussy baby or toddler is having problems with milk or gluten. They cut it out and then add it back in a month or two later and everything is fine. It’s hard not to be so eye ropy about it, your kid had a fussy phase, it wasn’t food related but society is obsessed with the idea that we can fix our kids from normal behavior and development.
Absolutely this!
Oh and another thing— I’ve been told my son’s eczema was absolutely caused by.. goldfish crackers
It wasn’t. It was fabric softener. A skin irritant for both of us! Not everything is caused by food!
Not everything is caused by food! I may need that on a t-shirt...
It’s hard enough to feed myself due to ADHD executive function issues (too many steps, etc). We need more options, not fewer.
Well said.
Wasn't there a whole Red Dye causing ADHD scare in the '90s? But come on, to tell someone food can fix them, insinuating you caused your ADHD by not eating correctly. So dangerous and damaging.
I feel like I'm seeing the red dye thing making a comeback, but haven't worked up the energy to report it out yet...
Yes, my mom was intense about it, and yet I’m adhd, bc I was born that way! (She’s very accepting of me in that way.) It is making a comeback. As a parent I can say I hate red food dye bc it’s really hard to get out of the carpet…
That is the absolutely reasonable reason to detest red food dye!
Not to mention that for me, ADHD makes it harder to eat anyway! Eating is boring, I get distracted and forget, and my meds that make life better suppress my appetite. Sugar and food dye are not the problem.
Sometimes sugar is all my neurodivergence wants and if it means I’m eating? ILL TAKE IT
Correct. I also had a therapist tell me that carbs actually do make us feel better emotionally, and that it was important to do things that make me feel better, so if that means eating bread or pasta, go for it. I don’t know if I appreciated at the time how much that message meant to me, but it was such an important reframe of the role that food should play and that my mental health was part of and as important as my physical well-being.
and also we need carbs and simple sugars for our brains to work. we literally need them
The "wheat sensitivity" trend was happening just as I was diagnosed with celiac, which made it a giant ass-pain to ask for what I needed without sounding like every other "wheat is toxic" person. My two kids also are diagnosed celiac, and when wheat is actually bad for your family, it really, really sucks to be lumped in with the diet culture people.
SO frustrating. Celiac folks really deserve better.
DEEP BREATH here.
A toddler bloating?! When I say I got rage tears, I am not exaggerating. Blowing raspberries on my kids "bloated" tummies is one of the highlights of parenting.
This newsletter is so triggering for me because of a weird grief I have over my father. For context, my stepmom is Queen of the Diet, especially trying to draw correlations between food and symptoms. I will give her that alcohol, especially red wine, probably does make her migraines worse. But I don't think the non-organic chicken (verses organic, free range) is giving her cat a skin reaction (not kidding here, she actually believes this).
So when my dad was dying, he had cancer and was in and out of the hospital with different symptoms and issues (as is normal), my stepmom started restricting his food. He still ate what little he could stomach, got as many calories as we could in him, but he couldn't have what he wanted because it would aggravate his symptoms. A man who loved food. No Wendy's cheeseburger, no whiskey, no beer, no BBQ sauce, no potato chips (his favorite), NO FLAVOR. I made him bone broth from scratch, since this was acceptable, and made it taste like pho, so he got some flavor at least. I think part of this was denial over terminal cancer, but even so, you're so miserable already, why make it worse? When he finally passed, I was so sad he spent the last months of his life in a flavor desert because she was so steadfast in her beliefs, and he listened to her. I'm still sad for him.
Verses my grandmother, who just asked for whiskey from a spoon, and we gave it to her whenever she wanted.
The levels of BS, control and fear mongering targeting women and their health. It makes me so angry.
Also when my infant started having reflux symptoms, our PED suggested I cut out dairy. I did, for a month, with no change in the baby. So they suggested I cut out soy. I said no, and asked for a prescription of reflux meds for her (white, middle class, medically confident, privilege here). Guess what resolved the reflux symptoms. And I got to keep eating without guilt or fear.
Oh Katie. So sorry you went through that. Sending lots of love.
This is so sad and infuriating ❤️ thinking of you and your dad
I’m so sorry. My uncle died October 2022 and he had been restricting his eating a ton after the recurrence of his brain cancer- the last month of his life when he was released to hospice care he did eat whatever he wanted. The waves of grief have been hitting me strong here in August (around the time last year his symptoms returned after surgery in April), thank you for sharing your heart and grief with us.
My mom is a huge believe in food sensitivity, which I'm realizing contributed to my sense that my then-4-yr-old's stomach issues could be caused by food. And the "holistic" pediatrician we were seeing at that time totally endorsed that possibility -- so I put my friggin preschooler on an elimination diet and then wondered why, by the time she was 8, she was making up food rules ("sugar makes my stomach hurt") that eventually turned into full-blown ED. Literally no one suggested that those early stomach pains could've been anxiety, which seems SO clear in retrospect.
I found my 8th grade journal 😬 and I spent a lot of time talking about chronic stomachaches around my crushes- like yes that’s anxiety 14 year old me. It’s like no one ever mentioned the word to me! I didn’t have super restrictive eating as a teen but I was known to throw whole sandwiches out or skip lunch when I was feeling anxious or jealous.
This is so so so common for tweens and teens!
I took pictures of my harmed by diet culture thoughts- the person who ended up being my high school bf is a year older than me and he didn’t want to be a couple when I wasn’t in high school yet- in 8th grade I wrote a few times he was going to fall in love with a skinny prettier girl 😅 I was straight size my whole life until after my second kid was born and I had a great friend group and good relationship with my family growing up but so much anxiety tied into people will like me more if I am skinnier. I hated seeing evidence I had internalized fat phobia at 14! Thank you for all your work Virginia, it is so important! My husband started reading Fat Talk last night after many times of me telling him important this work is for parents. ❤️
The way elimination diets prolonged me getting actual treatment for my Crohn's Disease, putting my body in grave danger...
It was never cranberries, night shades, onions, anything not made from almond flour, etc. Turns out it was fucking stress from believing that I had control over my body versus a powerful autoimmune disease and the untenability of being a public school teacher in the US.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this piece.
Here for the rage 100%. There is a special place in hell for people who prey on parents, particularly new parents, who are already intensely vulnerable. Here is another area where the 360° social media industry has made it possible for snake oil merchants to hawk their "solutions" to what might or might not be actual problems. The really insidious piece is that this gets into people's heads, where the pressure to be a perfect parent is already enormous, and often unfairly shared in a relationship, concentrating it. The anxiety of this pressure is enough in itself to cause myriad physical and emotional effects, all playing off one another to make people feel crazy and miserable, just for doing the best they can. I agree: this round of preying on parents is especially dangerous.
FWIW, from a saging elder who has been through this shit: Shut down socials for a week. Use that time to NAP. You can do this with your little one/s if needed. Human history supports you with thousands of years of experience. Ask for help and alone time. Make yourself some calming tea, and go outside and find some nature: you know where, even in a city. Close your eyes and listen to the birds or other sounds around you. Smell the air—is it grass, flowers, is there rain coming? There is no wrong way to do this. You are doing a wonderful job because it is clear how much you care. That is enough. It is more than enough. Breathe. Know that you are loved. Repeat.
Okay I am back 😂
As someone with a diagnosed auto-immune disease, I get these recommendations all. the. time. Cutting out gluten is a blanket recommendation, consistently. As are those IgG tests, especially in patient-run support groups. It's extra frustrating for me because, turns out a lot of the GI stuff happening was 1, stress, 2, not eating enough, and 3, my gallbladder was a trash fire. But none of that got addressed for a long time because the focus was on getting me in to orthorexia.
And of course now they're doing it to kids. It's absolutely an extension of how screwed up parenting is in the US and how we view it, AND "the war on ob*sity", which has recently moved to prescribing unresearched drugs and surgeries to children, permanently altering their growning bodies, AND misogyny in medicine. It's f*cked up.
Thanks for this piece - and sharing the companion piece!
I’m a first time mom and naively joined a non-toxic parenting Facebook group (aka glorified anti-vaxx club). Not only was I horrified to see so many parents (mostly moms) ask strangers on the internet to confirm their small child’s (fill in the blank) food sensitivity as causing anything from poor sleep to rashes to seemingly serious medical problems. Just cut out eggs/gluten/wheat/soybeans/blah blah and your child’s problems will disappear! I understand the allure of such a “simple” solution to the myriad issues that arise from being a parent to a small human and wanting to feel in control, but it’s scary how many kids are being raised on the advice of unqualified internet evangelists.
Whew, yes.
One trend I would like a closer look into: The mom-guilt over how our family diets impact the environment. And the fear over single-use plastic -- no more Ziplocs, now moms should wash everything (resealable baggies, cloth napkins, class/steel lunch containers).
Hmm yes. Not sure I'm ready for the internet trolls if I argue in favor of single use plastic! But you are right, it has created yet more (mostly maternal) domestic labor.
I am a person who actually does wash out her ziplocks etc, but I also fully understand that single use plastic saves lives. Full stop. There is no safe healthcare without single use plastic. Many folks with disabilities cannot live without single use plastic (like straws! another hot button). I would love our focus to be on better alternatives to single use plastic that are reasonable and affordable rather than blaming moms (as always) or putting more labor on them. Because there is a huge percentage of dads, I would guess, who would not even consider washing out a ziplock or reusable silicone bag. Systemic not individual solutions, always.
Part vent, part comment:
Can we look into the placebo effect with food restriction/ food sensitivity. I.e.: you don't feel better physically when you cut out xyz, you feel morally superior or smug. You're out of touch with your body bc you've listened to so much noise and rules and diet culture all your life, so when you read something that tells you you are doing a good job if you cut out xyz, or that you will feel good if you cut out xyz ... it's the gold star that feels good, not your actual body.
This was fascinating. When my kids were little (early aughts) we of course didn’t have access to over the counter food sensitivity testing, so certain people were sure their kids had food allergies. I have a family member who was forever restricting her toddler’s food. The “bad” foods changed a little every time we saw them, but wheat and dairy were always no-nos. It was frustrating to be with them because of all the food issues.
This intensive mothering climate sucks for everyone. To try to chase this mythical “ideal mom” we are working so hard to try to make sure we don’t screw up our kids. And we’re told no detail is too small to ignore, so sure, micromanage your children’s food. Isn’t your child worth it? Ugh!!!!! I’m so glad this newsletter and the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter exist and that people are talking about how harmful this all is. My kids are grown, and I’m STILL fascinated and horrified by what this culture demands of moms.
I remember this so clearly. There was so much pressure to attribute everything kids did to what they ate (too bouncy? Tsk, sugar. really smart? must be the fish! ) and it was a whole way to make (mostly moms) not trust themselves and judge one another- and fear that we were not adequately optimizing our children! Ugh, what a time. And it was all made up.