The healthy diaries

Hi everyone,

As I speak, Twitter is going mad with peoples opinions, tears, and heartbreak surrounding this article:

marie-claire-article-the-hunger-diaries

from the recent issue of Marie Claire magazine. Thank you, Strawberry Sweat for scanning the article. I’m sure no one wants to waste their money on such a sad piece of journalism.

Oh, Marie Claire, as a long-time reader, I am so disappointed!

Unfortunately, I can’t find anything positive about this article at all That makes me upset because I am someone who likes to look at positives. For example, I did not like how they referred to Caitlin’s Operation Beautiful as a “body image guide” and a book about “body affirmations.” If I had never heard of Operation Beautiful, I would assume (from this article) that it held a negative connotation, like, for example women posting notes saying things like, “Nothing tastes as good as being skinny!” As a long time reader of Marie Claire, I was waiting for them to write an article about Operation Beautiful and write about it for what it really is.

Towards the beginning, they describe what a breakfast typically looks like and say, “a smoothie of raw spinach and rice milk.” Excuse me? I’ve never seen a smoothie with just “raw spinach and rice milk.” Yuck! Typically, I see smoothies of various fruits, spinach, milk or yogurt, peanut butter, chocolate, and other yummy combinations that provide nutrition, taste, and a lot of calories to give a much needed boost.

Also quoted, “{the bloggers} are not comfortable enjoying {their treats} because of their extreme mentality…” Perhaps they missed the frequent posts of all these ladies of indulging? Did they not read Tina’s recent adventures on the Orlando Culinary Tour where she happily made chocolates, and dug into them before bringing them home? From that post alone, I see chocolate, I see smiles, I see healthy relationships with food.

Or, maybe they missed the frequent posts of how Kath and her husband have taken up a hobby of brewing their own beer? In my eyes, this is healthy eating at it’s best. By enjoying beer, readers can see there’s a lovely balance and again, both Kath and her husband have smiles to prove it. Oh, and I never saw Kath pouring anything into her beer to “sabotage” the experience.

I could cite a thousand more posts, but frankly, you can visit these blogs and see for yourself. I guarantee you will be hooked on these blogs and unhooked from Marie Claire

Meals and Miles

Carrots N Cake

Kath Eats

Eat, Live, Run

Healthy Tipping Point

Hangry Pants

As a psych*logist myself, I find it really disturbing that the professionals interviewed for this article even participated. You can’t judge someone just by quickly glancing at their blog, which evidenced by the lack of knowledgeable information about these ladies is exactly what they did.

If the article would have focused on both the positive and negative of food blogging, and not focusing just on these ladies, I would have felt better. Really, there are bloggers and readers out there that have problems with food. This article would have opened up a good discussion if they would have looked at both the positives and negatives.

It’s sad that in the United States where people obsess about their food, that people who actually do it right, get punished in an article like this one. Isn’t it best to learn by example anyways? Isn’t it noble of food/fitness/health bloggers to post their daily life to show that healthy living is possible? What is so wrong with being healthy?

Anyways…

I want to end this post on a positive note. Here are some things I have learned from healthy living bloggers:

1. It’s okay to have a cookie with breakfast.

2. It’s good to listen to your body and listen to the cravings. If you want pizza, get pizza! It’s all about balance.

3. Eating real food is the way to go. Look at ingredient lists, not calories.

4. Encourage your friends to be healthy too.

5. Eat your vegetables!

6. Your goal should be overall health. Not how many calories or how much you weigh.

Now, if those aren’t positive life lessons, I don’t know what is.

xo