If you subscribe to the belief that all processed food is evil then Dr. Max Pemberton has some news for you. The British eating disorder specialist wrote an open letter for The Daily Mail, where he outlined the reasons behind the rising number of young women developing eating disorders as a result of following a series of ‘healthy’ diets.
“For those of us who work in treating eating disorders, ‘clean eating’- a trend that focuses on avoiding processed foods and consuming raw and unrefined produce- is a phrase we’ve come to dread,” he wrote. According to him, an “emaciated” 20- something woman, probably still studying in university, is the typical victim of the fad. Her interest in wellness has led her to demonise certain food groups, leaving her with a predominantly plant-based diet that’s deficient in nutrients.
Pemberton notes that many of his patients are unable to even walk up the stairs on their own as their severe lack of energy forces the body to cannibalise its own muscles. He also claims that many of these women will develop reproductive issues while others exhibit signs of osteoporosis and fractures because of weak bones.
It’s not limited to physical damages only. He writes that this also has an adverse effect on his patients’ mental health, “Many are depressed. They complain of being tired all the time, perishingly cold, and struggle to concentrate because the brain, which needs a steady supply of glucose to function properly, has been deprived for some time.”
He concludes by saying that the idea of seeing certain foods as clean and some as dirty is an “inherently disordered way of viewing the world” and that “the whole irony of the clean eating fad is that despite what it purports to be, it’s fundamentally toxic.”
While binge-eating processed food is a terrible idea, it’s unrealistic to completely remove it from your diet. Here are all the important things you should look out for on a processed food label.
Decoding food labels
[Gallery id=”591″]
