Lifestyle Medicine

Fruit Is Not Making You Fat

If you go to a health professional and they tell you fruit is bad, turn and run in the other direction.

If you spend enough time online you may run across some supposed “expert” or other exclaiming the dangers of fruit.

1. It is loaded with sugar.
2. Fruit will mess up your adrenal gland.
3. Fruit will give you fatty liver disease.

Believe it or not I’ve seen all of these opinions on websites and social media platforms, all from people with various combinations of letters after their names. Most of these people should know better. I have a feeling many of them do, but maybe that’s not where the money is at.

Giving people sound advice about nutrition, sleep, smoking cessation, stress management, and other lifestyle recommendations isn’t sexy. As a practicing chiropractor I try my best to stay on top of the research in my field, but I also recognize that there are social, psychological, and lifestyle factors to consider when coming up with a treatment plan for whatever is ailing a patient.

I’ve never encountered a patient who needed to eat less fruit for any health problem, anecdotal sure, but let’s face facts. Fruit is not a contributing factor when it comes to the obesity epidemic, because there isn’t enough fruit being eaten to even come close.

Here’s the truth.

No one who is eating whole fruits as a regular part of an otherwise healthful diet is suffering any ill effects from fruit.

Unless you have an allergy or a rare medical condition, fruit is not harmful to you. It will not make you fat, mess up your hormones, or contribute to fatty liver disease.

What adding fruit to your diet will do is supply you with fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients.

In fact, we’d all be a lot healthier if we ate more fruit. Here in the United States there is an obesity epidemic, and according to the CDC the number of Americans eating their daily fruits and veggies is abysmal.

In 2019, 12.3% and 10.0% of surveyed adults met fruit and vegetable intake recommendations, respectively. Meeting fruit intake recommendations was highest among Hispanic adults (16.4%) and lowest among males (10.1%). Meeting vegetable intake recommendations was highest among adults aged ≥51 years (12.5%) and lowest among adults with low income (6.8%).

Also from the CDC:

Adults should consume 1.5–2 cup-equivalents of fruits and 2–3 cup-equivalents of vegetables daily.

Challenge yourself.

Try eating 5–7 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Whole fruits, not juice or dried fruit as those do contain a lot of sugar, but fresh whole fruit and vegetables, or their frozen versions.

With only 1 in 10 Americans meeting the recommended daily amount, it is my strong opinion that the vast majority of people here need to eat a lot more fruit.

Unfortunately fruit can be expensive, and there are many problems on a society and systems level making it difficult for a lot of people to eat more healthfully, but the idea that fruit is bad for you is pure nonsense espoused by “gurus” who are no doubt trying to sell you something along the lines of their “unique adrenal support formula” or bullshit fad diet cough carnivore cough.

Bottom line, with only 1 out of 10 Americans eating the recommended amount of fruit a day, it’s not the fruit making us fat.