Intermittent Fasting: The (New And) Destructive Diet Fad (For Men)
Packaged and presented as an “optimization”, it’s a double standard on a diet fad that’s clothed as an eating disorder.
I learned a few weeks ago that my dad has taken up intermittent fasting. Every Sunday (as far as I know), he follows the idea of eating a lot of food in the morning and then coasts the rest of the day with water. I know another guy online who has shed 30 pounds in a matter of months by doing squats, pushups, situps and planks followed by fasting. His meal is at supper time and he eats a lot of proteins and greens in order to build muscle mass.
These two men are following in the footsteps of many other men who have publicly announced their dietary plans:
- Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, touted his routine and most notable was his one-meal-per-day.
- In 2013, there was also Hugh Jackman talked about his plan that consisted of an 8-hour window to eat and 16 hours of fasting.
- Phil Libin, the former CEO of Evernote, was fasting for upwards of 8 days at a time.
- In 2016, we had Kevin Rose who created the app Zero, an app to help track fasting regimens. At the time of writing, the app has over 1 million downloads.
But what I find so odd is the fact that none of these men — including my own dad or my acquaintance online — have gotten any backlash for their decision. Because what these men describe is awfully similar to what women have done in the past.
For example, there is Gwenyth Paltrow who created controversy around the fact she only had 300 calories per day when following a detox regimen in January 2018.
There is also Jenna Bush Hager and Hoda Kotb who weighed themselves on live TV after a week of eating between 10 am and 6 pm with the intent of losing weight and boosting brain health, energy and skin.
On smaller scales, there are also all of those fad diets that you see in grocery store magazines. They talk about insane results and in a sense encourage women to take up these eating habits unless they’re happy with not having thigh gaps, shedding tones of body fat, having wonderful skin, or so many other things. It subtly guilt-trips women into doing these things.
For women, intermittent fasting isn’t anything new. And if any woman does it, they are heavily scrutinized. After all, people are quick to point out that it all creates an eating disorder.
However for men, no one doesn’t make any of those call outs. In fact many men embrace it and see it as a means of providing mental clarity and boosting energy levels. But in the end, both men and women are doing the exact same thing. They can spin it however they like, but men are now running the risk of slipping down the same slope of dangerous eating practices without realizing it.
How Effective Is Intermittent Fasting?
Just like with all diets, the research behind these health trends are going to be scattered. This is on top of the fact you have prominent individuals saying that it works for them.
On smaller scales, you have people that you know personally who might be doing this and are seeing results — like my acquaintance losing 30 pounds.
Indeed, intermittent fasting can work:
- When it’s done properly, it can be a solution for obesity or for those preventing diabetes and heart problems.
- Some research also says that fasting can reduce inflammation and slows the aging process. However, it has little to support that this is linked to weight loss.
- Then you have personal accounts like Kat Stoeffel who has said that fasting has given him mental clarity.
But because this is a diet, there is research that intermittent fasting doesn’t work. Notably, when fasting for long periods, you’re dropping blood sugar levels and one solution to fixing that is eating carbs. Also losing blood sugar levels can lead to grogginess, dizziness, headaches, fatigue, dehydration, and irritability. This explains why men bring up drinking plenty of water to potentially stave off those effects. That said, if you do suffer from diabetes then this isn’t going to turn out well at all.
On a scientific level, both the good and the bad of intermittent fasting can’t be generalized as well as it is being presented right now. All the studies that have been done are short in duration and have small sample sizes in the first place.
What has been more effectively covered is disordered eating:
- A 2019 study from Britain’s National Health Service found hospital admissions due to eating disorders have doubled in preteen children over the past decade.
- There is also a link of certain behaviours to anorexia. One of the causes stems from food and calorie intake, developing food rituals, and limiting the amount of food one takes.
- And for men in particular, eating disorders are often underrepresented, under-treated, and under-diagnosed.
Overall, intermittent fasting can serve as a gateway to worse eating disorders as they instill certain food rituals and habits that can spiral out of control. These tendencies can get worse for certain people beyond those currently suffering from diabetes. For example, if you are genetically vulnerable to binge eating, intermittent fasting can cause you to lean into that even more.
Those who are genetically prone to anorexia nervosa can also develop that if they practice intermittent fasting.
Why Do Men Not Face The Stigma?
Not many people know about those things and yet we still behave in a predictable way when we know people are fasting.
If that person is a woman, we are quick to judge them, maybe tell them to be careful, or tell them to stop because it’s not good for you.
If that person is a man, we say nothing, give them a slap on the back and tell them to “go for it bro!”.
We’re night and day with this and the reason for that is we still focus on gender roles to some degree. Historically, men are placed in specific box similar to women.
For women, it’s all about beauty. How pretty they are, how much their skin is glowing, how pretty their hair is, and more. Being beautiful — on a societal level — is what women should be striving for.
Men on the other hand are all about success. They are the providers of the household and anything they do that can amp their productivity, improve their life, or have more control in their life is seen as a good thing.
It’s for this reason that Jack Dorsey only got a slight pushback over his eating habits. And now it is a staple for Silicon Valley and many other prominent men. It has become so influential that intermittent fasting is a method of branding yourself as someone who has control, loves productivity, and biohacking their life to be fully optimized.
It just creates all these buzzwords and the fact people are embracing it when it comes from men means they’re denying the double standards. After all, women have been doing this for years and all they’ve ever gotten were finger-pointing and accusations.
As soon as a man announces they’re doing it people are losing their minds over how “revolutionary” or “incredible” it is.
Another way to look at this is through our work environments at large. How people work right now is extreme and those mix in with eating habits as well.
The fact intermittent fasting is being pushed by men as some productivity hack, a key to greater success, or a general self-improvement tactic is intentional and destructive.
It results in people going down a road where they could develop anorexia nervosa or avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) and not even realize. And they especially don’t notice it if some rich CEO say’s it’s healthy and boosts productivity.
It’s the Noom situation all over again, a product that promotes disordered eating but with some slight tune-ups, it’s deceived men into thinking this is fine and helpful. This is despite the fact it’s literally repackaged old diet fad trends that women have gone through and know it’s absolute bull.
The different wording is also sinister as it avoids stigmatization but also makes it difficult for doctors to diagnose as well. The fact intermittent fasting is seen as “productive” removes the idea that fasting is a bad thing. For men especially because we often don’t see that as a problem.
Another example is men will say they have a food addiction and not a binge-eating disorder — despite the fact that those are the exact same thing. The difference is addiction is not tied to any one gender while binge-eating disorder has been traditionally viewed as “just a women’s disorder”.
Similar to Noom, this diet is ultimately instilling disordered eating into men and putting their health more at risk. It’s especially bad for men because we are less likely to look for treatment or be unaware that this is a problem. It is further reinforced by the fact that we as a society are obsessed with self-improvement and productivity. Anything that can give us some kind of edge, we’ll take it regardless of the damage it could do.
So What Can We Do?
When it comes to health, it’s always a tricky thing. Every person has their own unique success stories and in some situations, what people are doing healthwise is wrong and should reconsider a new eating habit or way of losing weight or staying fit.
All of our bodies are different and for many people, intermittent fasting could possibly work for them. At the same time, it could also ruin you.
Removing the double standard — or pointing it out — can be a huge step forward in people being more conscious of this particular aspect. This can slowly change how the general public views these things.
And if there are people you know who are doing intermittent fasting right now, it’s worth asking them what their goals are around it. This is on top of encouraging them to eat more after a certain period of time.
This shift in thinking — that fasting isn’t some productivity hack and is just the same diet fad peddling we see on grocery magazines packaged differently — can result in both men and women being healthier.
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