femaleHats off, what if I'm just wandering around and intermittent fasting turns out to be… a fad? Let's say there's something similar to the long-forgotten “baby food diet” of the early 2010s. Amid the current clamor for fasting as a way to cure cancer, boost brain power, repair cells, and burn fat, I've heard Lady Gaga, Cheryl Cole, Jennifer Aniston, and many other women 10 years ago. Celebrities.
This included eating about 14 servings of pureed baby food each day, with the occasional real meal. The newspapers giggled as sales of wet baby food soared and jars of Ella's Kitchen's organic chicken and sweetcorn mash sold out before they could even be loaded on planes. Their intended infant mouth. Funny enough, this diet, like intermittent fasting (IF), was simply a form of long-term abstinence. So, I wonder why one diet made people laugh while another seemed like a miracle. I think the answer is simple. Suddenly IF it's all men, no one is calling Cole BS like he did when he ate a jar of creamy porridge.
I was conflicted to hear earlier this month that Chancellor Rishi Sunak was engaging in an extreme 36-hour weekly fasting ritual. In the end, we just diagnosed “hangers” as a complete social disease, only to discover that the most powerful man in the land voluntarily parachutes down into the hanger zone every Monday. But the media coverage of Sunak's adoption of fasting has had an unexpected side effect. It brought to the fore two very distinct fasting shortages.
The first camp includes people who come to IF because they are suffering from an illness or medical problem. For example, there have been studies showing a link between a lean diet and chemotherapy, which naturally leads to IF in cancer patients. It has found supporters in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome, which can cause irregular menstrual cycles or infertility. The same goes for people fighting serious inflammation like arthritis or reducing type 2 diabetes. Parts of my life have been this way due to medical necessity. Coincidentally, they were all women.
Now let's look at the other camps. For short, let's call them men who did nothing wrong. Before Sunak, a familiar male ecosystem propagated the diet. Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson have praised it and it's been covered several times on the Alpha Podcast. CEO's diary. While the fasting-themed episode is tagged with the term “Get Your Sex Life Back,” the YouTube version deploys a clunky graphic that explodes: “Testosterone increased 1,300 percent!”
IF has also been a recent theme for many Silicon Valley executives who, as a group, have emphasized the rise of “longevity” in general, and that same desire to live much longer than mere mortals has been intertwined with self-help gurus such as: Tony Robbins promoting the concept of “biohacking.”
It's no surprise that IF has been promoted by a certain segment of men who think a lot about their masculinity. IF is often described as a way for us (overfed, over-pampered, useless modern humans) to return to the purposeful days of hunter-gatherers or cavemen. -Food solidarity. Oddly enough, one of this group's biggest enemies seems to be breakfast. Ah, crappy breakfasts – once considered the most important meal of the day, they now spawn endless angry videos titled “Why Breakfast Is a Scam.”
I would never resent someone for doing something to make them feel better. But if it sounds like I'm mincing my hooks, that's true. My main suspicion about IF comes from the fact that – without exception – all the men I know personally and who practice IF are very healthy and very thin.
I care because we live in a time when male eating disorders are prevalent but not fully discussed. In the United States, approximately 10 million men and boys suffer from eating disorders. One in three patients is male. In the UK, men such as former cricketer Freddie Flintoff and actor Christopher Eccleston have tried to change public opinion about male eating disorders by discussing very publicly their experiences with bulimia and anorexia respectively. But I think most of us are still completely in denial that men can exhibit this type of disease.
But it's becoming increasingly rare to see men in the public eye who aren't completely thin, which for many of us is simply unattainable. When you search online today, take a close look at all the slim men you see, and think about all the average-height or plus-size men you don't see. A recent Israeli study even suggested that the hegemony of male body types in porn is causing eating disorders in men. Intermittent fasting feels like the latest thing to get perfectly healthy men doing slightly barbaric and extreme things.
I have seen it firsthand since joining the gym. Just being in the same environment as men gave me a whole new set of self-doubts about my weight and physique. I've seen that in many of my male friends, too, after the surface has been slightly scratched. I worry that when my boyfriend starts extreme cycling, starts devoting himself to a gym routine, trains for an Ironman or Tough Mudder event, or starts intermittent fasting, there's more going on than just a basic need for health.
As male messaging based on algorithms becomes increasingly primal and the strange, caveman-reminiscent phenomenon continues, it's worth learning more about this from your male friends. Maybe he just finished breakfast?
For anyone struggling with the issues raised in this article, the Eating Disorders Charity win's helpline is available 24/7 on 0808 801 0677. NCFED provides information, resources, counseling, as well as a support network for people suffering from eating disorders. Visit eating-disorders.org.uk Or call 0845 838 2040.