The Truth About Diet Shaming And How To Avoid It

It seems like every time you go to a lunch with your girlfriends to catch up, you all can't split the appetizer normally because one of your friends is on some crazy new diet that you can barely pronounce. Nowadays, the types of diets are endless:

Vegans

Paleo

Vegetarians

Pescatarian

Flexitarian

Pollotarian

Lacto Vegitarian

Ovo Vegetarian (Believe it or not that is an actual thing!!!)

Chickitarian (No, I don’t believe that is a real thing… yet…)

So yup, you are the only one at the table willing to finish off that glorious appetizer sitting in front of you because you are already having a “cheat day." And since you are sitting with your friends, you can't talk about their new diet for two reasons:

1. You probably can’t even pronounce it.

2. Your brain is telling you that anything different from your personal lifestyle is unnecessary.

Society is trying to tell us we have to shame people who are not necessarily eating the normal, unhealthy if you will, meals that most Americans consume daily. However, as soon as people start to exercise a new diet and change their unhealthy eating patterns, people automatically change the way they look at you. Some people will have an extremely hard time seeing change in their diet, especially if they already have their own idea of being healthy. This is why diet shaming has almost become the new norm for many people on certain social media platforms. It is so easy to see someone’s post about their lunch or a picture of the yummy shake they just made. Vegans, for example, share one little article about their specific beliefs and the science they have found behind it and people on social media go beyond nuts. Meat lovers love their meat.

From a personal standpoint, talking about the specific diet changes I have made in the last year even make me cringe when I start to talk about them with family members or close friends. I have been Paleo for just over six months now, and the truth is, it's because I don’t know all of the ins and outs of it yet. I had to make the very, very tough decision to remove carbs from my diet by late December when the pain medicine for my arthritis suddenly stopped working, instead of continuing to take in dose after dose of the medicine that was basically killing my kidneys. This was something that was extremely hard for me because I love my pastas. However; since my arthritis happens to be located in my spine, the pain had to be managed.

Now, I know it sounds ridiculous that something as simple as a diet can have a major effect on the well-being of your body, especially when there is serious pain involved, however carbs are inflammatory foods that can cause certain joints in your body to flare up, especially when they are arthritic.

Now part of being Paleo is eating meat, and a lot of it. I’m sure a lot of people disagree with the diet change I have made and don’t understand how my body is still functioning without the energy that carbs give you. Well, the truth is – every body in this world is different. Our cells are different, our genes are different and the food we consume is different.

Truth be told, sharing a video on Facebook about how red meat is bad for you is not going to stop a friend from eating meat. Everyone needs to learn the ins and outs of their own bodies before they can start making huge diet changes.

Judge people on their actions and kindness, not the food they choose to consume.