Monday, 16 May 2011
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Marie Claire Controversy! Are Proper Nutritionists Really Eating Like This?
I am beginning to think Marie Claire really has some deep issues with food. First, they started an outrage about healthy food and living blogs after a criticising post about the women who run them (in my opinion, it had good points--and if the journalist saw what she saw, she was right to speak up). However, now they have unleashed another comment war over their latest article: What Nutritionists Really Eat.It's a bit concerning that an article that seems so straightforward and actually helpful could actually cause great controversy. What do nutritionists really eat, and how can I change my diet to be a more insightful eater? As I perused the site last week and saw the headline, I happily clicked but was then shocked and irritated by what I read.
The first nutritionist they interviewed was Natalia Rose (5'7 and 117 pounds), with her personalized programs being labeled at $850. First up is her fitness regime, which isn't anything I'd scoff at, seeing as at least she maintains a daily workout. Her workout of choice is dancing or bouncing on a mini trampoline for 45 minutes or cycling around Central Park. No big deal. Then we get to her motto, " Instead of being bogged down by your meal, you should be elevated by it." At this point, I'm like AW YEAH! Preach! The excitement ended though and the RED FLAGS were slowly raised when they noted her core advice. "I don't recommend my diet to beginners. Start slowly with any diet or detox, and make sure you're eating tons of seasonal, fresh fruits and vegetables." Not too bad right, maybe no one can eat so healthy all at once? Well, let's just peek at her daily eating routine:
BREAKFAST
Lemon tea with fresh, raw grated ginger, a squeeze of lemon, and Stevia to taste (a natural, calorie-free sweetener), 24 fl oz — 3 calories
Mountain Valley Spring Water, 16 fl oz — 0 calories
LUNCH
Nothing (!!)
DINNER
One small watermelon — 230 calories
Two cantaloupes — 376 calories
Two bananas — 200 calories
Smoothie (pineapple, avocado, kale, alfalfa sprouts, coconut water, mint) — 366 calories
DESSERT
Box of Salud macaroons, 4.5 oz — 604 calories
TOTAL DAILY CALORIES: 1,779
I'm at a loss. To see that she not only skips two meals of the day but replaces those calories with a fruit filled dinner and an ENTIRE BOX of macaroons for dessert is terrifying. Nutritionists are people that most look up to for healthy and life changing diet. There have been times were I've considered getting a consultation but this makes me back off. I cannot understand how a woman who declines to eat the most important meal of the day (breakfast) for a lemon detox tea can be taken seriously in her field. What scares me most is that although she seems to have shown us a disordered eating lifestyle, it doesn't stop there.
The other interviews go on to women that replace breakfast with hot water and a veggie smoothie, and eating less than 1500 calories a day (which is the recommended amount, not the maximum). Out of the entire article, there was only one diet that seemed healthy, satisfying and a routine that I wouldn't mind taking on. That was Haylie Pomroy from Los Angeles. Sure there were bits I could pick from the other women too, but overall hers was the one I could see as realistic to follow.
Marie Claire seems to have taken a dive in the health department these past couple of years, and as much as I rant, we all know the simple solution. Stop reading it! Sure they could have taken measures to show us a healthier side of nutritionists but all in all it's just an article. You don't have to continue reading it if you don't want to.
It also doesn't represent every single health expert. The tagline was "Do top food experts follow the strict advice they dole out to their famous clients?", and I can only hope they don't give out these regimes as tools. As for now, I'm going to skip over the Marie Claire health section and keep reading my coveted coveted issues of SHAPE magazine.
What do you think of the article? Of the nutritionists' diets? Have you ever gone to a nutritionist before, and if so, leave your experience in the comments--or send in a post!
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About the Author
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- From: angelaraiford@xanga
- About Me: I am a 20 something SFSU journalism student currently blogging about my study abroad experience in Germany (propermood.blogspot.com). Health and fitness are two ever growing parts of my life as I believe it should be for everyone. Some of my biggest inspirations for health are Bob Harper and Tiffiny Hall. This I signed up and begun training for my first half-marathon in San Francisco and really enjoying the journey of becoming a runner.
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Comments (33)
That article was fucking weird. I was looking forward to getting a few tips, but their diets look expensive and disgusting. Not to mention I'd still be hungry afterwards. I don't think I'll ever visit a nutrionist. I don't really have the money for that, haha. I just sort of listen to my body and give it what it craves, in moderation.
It seems that many people with eating issues/disorders want to become nutritionists. Just saying.
That's fucked up. She should lose her license for teaching that bull shit to people.
I read through all the sample diets and none of them were exceptionally horrible. Only 2 of them were under an approximate 2,000 calories per day (the other 3 were actually over) - the one you have posted here and the one from the Italian woman. Only the woman you posted here skipped a meal as well...the rest of them incorporated 3 meals, as well as snacks periodically throughout the day.
You're right though; if you don't like it, just don't read it. A lot can be said for not just skimming an article to see just what you just want to see, however.
Macarons and fruits? That's what I eat on top of everything else!
Plus she eats giant servings of fruit at dinner, that's so weird...
well all of those people sound pretty horrible and they obviously don't do much to put their schooling to good use to actually make others HEALTHIER and more energetic.
i am going to school to be a dietitian but that is because i have an extreme passion for food - fresh, real, healthy food, and i have a passion for getting others to enjoy those foods and feel all the benefits they have to offer. clearly i'll be doing that industry a great service once i get there ;) (not to say there aren't plenty of good nutritionists/dietitians out there, this article specifically chose to highlight the bad ones)
unhealthy dessert choice, but I can't really blame her, because the coconut macaroons at the walmart bakery section are quite delicious...although I can only eat about 4 macaroons since the appeal stops when too much sugar is consumed and I start to feel queasy. bananas are fulfilling or I just have a small stomach, so two bananas seem like a lot to me I'll have one during lunch with the smoothie and another during dinner instead of double bananas, because I'd be bloated. sometimes I'll have cereal for dinner, so the sugary dinner is not that odd to me. I easily lost a few pounds by drinking green tea instead of my usual soda. I don't drink soda anymore. here's my unhealthy food confession: I lost 10lbs during the course of a year in 2010 eating those kid sized portions of swanson tv dinners for lunch and dinner along with the variety pack of chips in the small 5-6oz portion packs. I had a drumstick ice cream cone for dessert. I know that it isn't healthy, but I kept within my calories count, although I didn't actually keep track of my calories. my blood test is healthy though
yay for youthful metabolism. enjoy my metabolic high while I can, but judging from the body type of my mother, who has been thin her entire life, I don't think my metabolism will slow down that much
don't follow what I did(at your own risk)
I'm confused, is she saying people should DO what she is doing, or is she just being honest, and she is a nutritionist. Because to be honest, they're people, and we're not perfect, and we don't always make good decisions, but somethings, like what we eat, should be our choice to make, and shouldn't be judged nearly as harshly as it seems it is. I wasn't under the impression nutritionists always had the healthiest diets ever myself, because the people who know the most about nutrition honestly seem to be those who have eating disorders or have been diet obsessed at one point and those things are necessarily healthy, but it doesn't mean you don't learn how to be healthy and how the body works and what to do in order to nourish it right while obsessing like that, because you do. You may not apply it, but you do learn it, and it sticks. Those people shouldn't have to be Gods of healthy eating to make a living off knowing information and teaching it to others.
However, while I only sort of skimmed that stuff, it seems like the idea was that these people were teaching others their diet tips and tricks, which in that case they have no right to be called a "nutritionist" because that is not "nutrition". I'm not the Goddess of healthy eating myself, I'm not trying to make it seem that way... but I know at least the basics of good nutrition, and to go a bit further, I'd say I know a fair amount about it. And that ain't it. I'm mostly talking about the first one really, as it struck me the most. There are problems with the other ones too, but there is sort of nothing okay about the first one and it's shocking to me if someone who people actually refer to as a "nutritionist" is giving out advice on a diet that is so lacking in proper nutrition for the body. It's one thing to abuse your own body, but to abuse other people's body's under the pretense that you are a professional giving out legit information is seriously just disgusting.
I don't eat like that, and I'm 5'8 and 120lbs, even after having a baby 4 months ago.
Why suffer with a "diet"? I eat when I'm hungry, I stop when I'm full. I go through a lot of pasta, veggies, fruit, bread, cheese....and some indulgences here and there.
I wouldn't pay a "nutritionist". Listen to your body and use common sense, you are what you put into your body.
Thank GOD someone else found this disturbing. I read my subscription every month but this one had me shaking my head.
Apparently all good nutritionists have liquid meals and only eat leafy greens? And then polish off a BOX OF COOKIES?
I agreed with one of those meal plans, I forget whose it was, but she had fish and salads and oatmeal. Healthy. Fueling. Good.
@AnonymousBlonde@xanga - thanks for the comment! Yeah, it's not that they are horrible, sondern they just don't seem like suitable lifestyle choices. And so true about the skimming too! Sometimes when people are too quick to comment they forget to read the entire article and get upset over a tiny detail or one section of an entire piece.
I was just so sad because I was hoping to sneak in a nutritionist for free just by reading the article haha.
@shivergirl07@xanga - I think that was the last one who had a lot of Trader Joes products! I could see myself with her eating regime as well.
I don't think I could eat two cantaloupes in one sitting if I tried, never mind piling even more food on top of that. 0_0
@angelaraiford@xanga - Very true, people do have a tendency just to skim and lock onto one point that outrages them, haha, rather than read the whole article, especially if you have to go to another site to see the full piece. I do agree with you that none of them really seem like suitable lifestyle choices, mostly because they seem to go a bit overboard on either calories (I mean, almost 2,500 calories is a lot...some people will see that and just assume, "Oh if I walk for 30 minutes a few times a week, it means I can shovel 2,500 cal worth of crap in my mouth!") or just one-two area(s) of the food pyramid.
It would be nice if more articles chose to highlight the really good people in an area like that. More people would benefit from learning how to properly nourish themselves.
I was confused when I looked at her diet and that she still ate more calories than me. Then I saw the entire box of cookies. Shit woman. Eat like a mouse so you can pig out on cookies much? Plus where the 'ell is the protein? I don't need a lot protein to feel satisfied myself but Jeezus.
i don't give a....
my point is that as long as nutritionists know the facts and are able to give them to me, thats good. If the nutritionist eating like this thinks it is wrong, then i would still go to her. if she thinks its right, then there's a problem
i just read the full article.
these people eat chocolate every day! one woman has 300 calories of chocolate at lunch. and another allowed herself exactly 15 carrots a day as a snack. Sould like anorexic behaviour to me. not healthy.
Breakfast and dinner are great. Lunch is immensely optional, depending on the kind of nutrients you get with both breakfast and dinner.
I don't even eat set meals. Like...ever. I just eat when I'm hungry, and I eat what I'm hungry for. It hasn't killed me yet. I just try to make sure all of my intakes (carbs fats proteins) are balanced the way I want them to balance by the day's end.
If you forget about the macaroons... which I guess you can't, but if you could, she's just following a really weird version of low fat raw veganism. There are people who do great living on just fruits, but they eat anywhere from 3000-5000 calories to maintain fairly slim figures. When you eat just fruit, your body's metabolic rate increases, + you need way more calories to get some of the same nutrients.
I just don't get the macaroons at the end. They don't fit with her whole cleanse and massive fruit at dinner thing. Honestly, she sounds like an anorexic wannabe holding off until whenever she can (dinner time apparently) then topping it off with macaroons so she's not hungry when she goes to bed.
Crazy
@At_Sixes_And_Sevens@xanga - I know eh? I didn't think of that. Lol to finish a watermelon, two cantaloupes, two bananas and a smoothie at once must take a crapload of time
Also, 3/5 are FAT.... I don't care what weight averages are supposed to be. A size eight is not "healthy," it's bulky!! The one whose diet is described here is one of two skinny ones but as you can see, she's not normal.
the first nutritionist is obviously being ridiculous (nothing for lunch, literally mountains of fruit for dinner then a whole box of macaroons?) but the other four are actually quite healthy. their weights range from mid-normal to slightly too thin, though; surely they should all be low-normal? the third one eats sushi products for his dinner, smart guy. very healthy and they actually contain calories.
i think being a nutritionist must be quite hard though: finding solid guidelines for what is actually good for you is nigh-on impossible! every time i read a magazine, there's a new '10 new superfoods' or a new diet, that weirdly enough is always great for you.. food is a hard, awkward area to work in.
people need to start realizing that they shouldn't diet; just listen to what your body says, educate yourself on what is healthy to eat, what proper portion sizes look like, and exercise to stay fit. people go so ridiculously overboard. i'm sure it's insanely easy to find out plenty of useful nutrition information online... i know that i have found plenty of "food plans" that people have posted online from nutritionists (and not ones that skip meals). most of them just have 3, or many small meals, and a bunch of snacks.
it's just about being balanced... these magazines are completely idiotic a lot of the time. and buying magazines like marie claire, vogue, seventeen, etc, only supports a bad industry (that often promotes the ultra-skinny model type that everyone complains about. but that's another topic...).
That's stupid. Also anyone can call themselves a nutritionist with a basic course. A registered dietician has 4 years of school. I've only ever worked with dieticians and would suggest anyone else do the same or at least do a lot of research before consulting a "nutritionist".
thats gonna give you diabetis. you cant last long on a diet like that! way too much fruit juice, just because its from the fruit it still has sugar and you need more protein.