There was a great article on the Guardian last week called No Diet, No Detox: How To Relearn the Art of Eating. It’s a wonderful report on how our eating habits have become disordered and the importance of finding a way to return to a more healthy, more psychologically balanced approach to food. This truly is a problem that we have yet to fully address as a society, and just to drive that point home, have a look at the advertisement that popped up in the middle of this article. (I got ad bombed!) 
If we wish to be a healthier society we’ll need to question things in our culture that actually work against that goal. This add makes the point for me. I find it so clear, I’m not even going to write anything more about it.
I will however, write about one other aspect. What is really revealing about that ad is that it is custom tailored to me. As a personal trainer I spend a lot of time looking at fitness related information on the web. As such, I got a ‘fitness’ related ad in the article I was reading. One of the most commonly made points about fitness today is that it is ‘confusing.’ Every day there is a new rule, or fad, or opinion on every aspect of fitness. Well, that situation is unlikely to improve if the current model is that if you search a few articles on nutrition, you are now opened up to every advertisement for every fad diet and miracle product out there.
To conclude, this is not a rant about the evils of advertising or of certain companies or products. The point is, when we talk about health and fitness there is both a conversation to be had about individuals and their own habits, preferences, and ‘personal responsibility’, but there are also broader, collective situations to be discussed. Health and fitness doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Maybe we can help ourselves and each other find a healthier way forward.
P.S.
Between me starting this post and publishing it, this came out on NPR: Diet Foods Are Tanking. So The Diet Industry Is Now Selling Health
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