THE FEAR FACTOR!
“Eating this is killing you!”
“This one ingredient is causing all of your problems!”
“You’ll never lose weight if you don’t do this!”
“That’s not keto!”
“Restriction is not sustainable, you will fail!”
“No one wants you to know this, but…”
Sound familiar? Headlines like these litter the health & fitness social media and online space like leaves on a lawn in New England late Fall. Their immediate intention is to get you to click and read. Sensationalism gets views! Their cumulative effect however can be much more insidious.
First, I want to emphasize that embracing the fear of food can lead to very unhealthy behavior that manifests as disordered eating for some individuals. I say some individuals because not every person who is pursuing a healthy lifestyle and using a specific way of eating that may on the surface appear restrictive is exhibiting behavior that can be identified as disordered. These pursuits can be attractive for individuals that are prone to disordered eating behavior. Connor Young speaks eloquently on this specific facet of the discussion in his article here where he asks, “Can a Keto Diet Cause Orthorexia?” And while many folk may not have an eating disorder triggered by fear, it can still lead us to places of unwarranted stress and make the challenges we are already facing feel insurmountable.
Fearing or demonizing food can also bring about a sense of comfort or superiority that in and of itself is a manipulation tactic we use on ourselves. Have you ever said to yourself, “At least I don’t eat that way!”? There is a difference between having a true understanding of why different food choices affect you individual and simply staying in a place of “that food is bad” or full on “that food will kill me.” It can keep us in a very surface level place that hinders our understanding of our relationship to food. Getting below that surface can be way more individual and challenging than blanket statements, but as with most things we bring to you here, it can be infinitely more rewarding in the long run.
I want to address two main concerns here that I think are a great start to diving deeper for yourself, namely why individuals use these fear tactics to get messages across and how we can navigate a landscape littered with them.
Why do they use fear?
Fear mongering around specific foods, ingredients, etc. is a game of semantics that plays on our desire to see things as black and white, so we can find simplified answers to our usually much more complex problems. Your immediate thought may be, “But Mike, you’re a keto guy, you think carbs make us fat!” Wrong. My perspective on carbohydrates, specifically highly processed products containing them, is much more nuanced. And I will definitely dive into that specific offshoot of this discussion in a future blog, but for now let’s talk about why we see fear used in advertising and social media.
In this article here, Dr. Vijay Rajan proposes a main reason is “…tapping into people's fears and insecurities, these campaigns aim to create a sense of urgency and persuade individuals to take action.” I encourage you to read his full piece because it takes this core concept and breaks it down well. It is that sense of urgency that someone trying to get you to buy something OR buy into something, like their set of beliefs, that they want to cultivate.
Seeing the words “this will kill you” or “this is making you sick” set off alarms in our heads that rightfully we want to respond to in order to remain healthy and safe. They manipulate that drive for self preservation knowing that when we are already concerned about our health, ie. We are trying to lose weight and clean up our eating, we are vulnerable to these outright attacks.
Vulnerability that can lead to us jumping around chasing the latest greatest shiny new thing that we’re told to avoid or to run towards. We don’t do this with ill intent or a conscious lack of self-care, but instead we often come from a place of long term struggle and the promise of easy answers to those struggles can be incredibly attractive. This can lead to us finding ourselves clinging to black and white narratives that drive our consumer behavior but keep us from reaching a true understanding of what is helping us and how to capitalize on it. The really messy thing is, often the fear based message we took action on does lead to positive results, so instead of trying to understand why we saw those results we stay in the place of “it must have been that this food was killing me.” There is a distinct difference between correlation and causation. Having a greater understanding of these concepts can be a powerful weapon on your health journey so if you are interested in a deeper dive, check out this article now.
So What Do We Do To Navigate This Landscape
Navigating these fear focused nutritional minefields can be challenging from an emotional standpoint. You want to educate yourself but find yourself bombarded with headlines and taglines that can make you feel like you need body armor when you hit the grocery store. I want to talk about how to get through all of the messages and manipulation intact and with an empowered perspective.
Curate Your Space - First and foremost, remember that you don’t owe anyone a thing on social media! So you can unfollow accounts promoting messages that are not helpful on your journey… without guilt! I am not encouraging you to create an echo chamber that only agrees with your one world view, but when you’re aware that someone is heavily focused on pushing fear based messages don’t give them your energy. Find people that challenge you to grow in mindful and positive ways.
Make “Let me look that up” Your First Reaction - Curation aside, when you do see a post or read something that immediately generates that sense of urgency and action, take a deep breath and see that red flag for what it is. You do not have to take that message in as truth without doing a little research. First, look to see if they are citing any research or studies, and start there. Be willing to slow yourself down and gain a greater understanding. Are they picking and choosing claims that the research does not support? Are they inflating their message to create urgency and not reporting facts? Be a wise consumer of all things!
Work on Knowing Yourself Better - I said that the fear based landscape can work to keep our knowledge at a surface level, and that includes our knowledge of ourselves. This suggestion is great whether we’re addressing the topic of this blog or not. What are the things that you care about and how do sensational messages around them drive your actions and emotions? What are the things you are good at right now and what things do you want to get better at when it comes to navigating your own challenges and journey? Honesty with ourselves is one of the best suits of armor can we can wear on a daily basis.
Work on Knowing Your Food Choices Better - Oh man this one is probably the most important weapon in our arsenal and the one that can take the most work. Don’t just buy into messages that demonize foods, even when you know restricting or adjusting your relationship with that food has been immensely helpful to you. Examine why that behavioral shift has had a positive outcome for you as a person. And be open to the fact that what works for you might not be the best choice for someone else. There is a distinct difference between “Carbs made me fat so cutting them made me lose weight!” and “Paying attention to my carb intake and cutting them back gave me a greater sense of control and freedom from cravings when it comes to my food choices. Shifting to a diet focused on healthy protein and fat gave me greater focus, energy and made staying consistent with my nutritional needs to achieve fat loss easier.” One makes a great headline but invalidates the experience of people living healthy lives and achieving their goals while consuming carbs mindfully. Saying “This was my experience” or “That way of eating was not right for me” is a more positive place to stand than in one of “All people need to do this!” Building up walls of fear around our food choices can hold us back from examining our true relationship with them. Because honestly, even if you cannot moderate a food and need to abstain from it, it does not mean the food was outright killing you. That shift in perspective empowers you to make choices because they are right for you and your body, not just because a headline said you should. It also allows you to work on finding what is the proper nutritional path for you as you build a healthy sustainable lifestyle.
Don’t React In Emotion - I want to circle back to when we see these string headlines on social media for a minute. Once you are truly doing the work to find your pathway, and you are more aware of the fear mongering tactics you can find yourself getting upset when you see them “in the wild.” Here I want to encourage to understand that whether a comment or response is positive or negative, feeding the machine keeps it going. The algorithms used by social platforms actual promote material the more negative responses it gets. So as hard as it is, don’t play into their traps! You will find that the less you put negativity out into the world online, the more peaceful your experience will be there.
Mind Your Plate And Not Mine - And lastly, I want to make an impassioned plea to promote the understanding that we all need to make different choices and take different pathways when it comes to reclaiming our health. One of the greatest things we can do for our own health is reminding ourselves what we can and cannot control. I can only control the choices I make and what I say about them, I cannot control what other people do and how they respond to the things that I say. We get excited when we discover something that has been life changing for ourselves and often then want to shout it from the rooftops that every person should do as we are. And yes, this can mean that someone might benefit from making the same change, but we still cannot waste energy trying to force it upon them. Share your thoughts when appropriate, be open to discussions, and be passionate! Just don’t let that passion turn into an attack on someone else’s choices. Remember how you would feel if someone had done that to you. Be kind to others and mostly to yourself.
I hope that this look at the wild world of fear based messaging has been interesting and that you can see it is clearly a topic I am passionate about. If you disagree with me, agree with me, or just want to talk more about it, drop a message here on our site or connect with me on Instagram at @gormygoesketo.
