People magazine has this column every week in their magazine that never fails to disappoint me: “What I Eat in a Day”.
This section shows readers what their favorite celebrities eat in one day or, in this case, don’t eat. After the magazine shows what they eat in a day, their nutritionist comments.
These are famous, active, fit women whose job it is to exercise daily and look good and yet 3/4 issues per month feature women who eat under 1300 calories per day and every single issue features a woman who is calorie deficit in her diet.
What’s worse is that the People Magazine nutritionist patently endorses their calorie deficit diets by commending their habits, rarely saying the actress/starlet should eat more. In fact, she often admonishes them for eating sugar!
Take Patti Stanger’s food diary. She barely eats 1300 calories. Assuming she doesn’t exercise at all, she’s still 700 calories below what she should be eating!
Nicole Scherzinger, who has said what an avid fan of exercise she is, eats a measly 1571 calories a day!
Leona Lewis‘ diet is actually something of concern barely over 1100 calories. The nutritionists comment? “Granola can be high in sugar even when packed with healthy oats and nuts,”–UM, WHAT ABOUT THE FACT THAT SHE IS STARVING HERSELF TO STAY THIN?! The disclaimer on the website (which does not appear in the print version) states “NOTE: It is recommended that women eat at least 1,200 calories per day, and men eat at least 1,800 calories per day.”
The site they link to, the American College of Sports Medicine does not actually say that. In fact they say:
“Liz Applegate, Ph.D., FACSM, director of sports nutrition at the University of California at Davis, says resting metabolic rate – the amount of calories the body burns in a resting state to keep internal organs operating – can be improved through lifestyle changes. The easiest way, she says, to calculate metabolic rate is to figure 10 calories burned for every pound of body weight for women, and 11 calories for every pound of body weight for men. For instance, a 130-pound woman has an approximate resting metabolic rate of 1,300 calories per day.”
Except the average weight of a woman in America is 166 lbs. So People Magazine’s readers, assuming COMPLETELY inactive as the calculation is for resting metabolic rate (versus active) are being told they need to eat 400+ calories less. Now assume that the reader walks a few days a week and now we are well below the deficit. In fact, most doctors recommend caloric intake be based on a few factors, not some arbitrary number that people magazine chose for women of 120lbs (120×10=1200 which is where they got their number).
I say all of this because I think the magazine has a responsibility to deliver a realistic and healthy expectation to readers. I have blogged about women and body issues in the past and I think that by printing these unhealthy eating habits in their magazine, People is telling women they must be hungry, petite, waif-like, to be healthy and pretty.
Instead, the magazine should only feature really healthy diets, ones that are sufficient for survival without vitamin B shots and will allow real women to thrive in their day-to-day lives. If an actress’ diet is nutrient insufficient, the magazine’s nutritionist should say as much, NOT tell her to cut out more calories by reducing sugar or starches.
I know this blogpost is even more serious than my usual ones so I will end with a joke:
I’m on a whiskey diet.
I’ve lost three days already.
HAR HAR HAR, get it? I tried to end on a light note!
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