Celebrity Lifestyle Books (Eye Roll)

CELEBRITY lifestyle diets, programs and books annoy me. There I said it. I even roll my eyes a little bit when I hear that a celebrity is releasing one. And, it’s not because of the reason you think.

There is endless debate on social media about the efficacy of some celebrity diets right now. But extreme diets have been around forever. It’s just that now social media puts the controversy surrounding them right in our faces. Forget paleo. What about the grapefruit diet, the macrobiotic diet, the soup diet and the baby food diet? They are all doing the rounds as well.

What annoys me is that regardless of the new fad celebrity diet book, a whole lot of people are going to run out and buy the book, follow the book, and feel worse that they couldn’t follow the book.

Then the book is forever to remain in a dusty stack with all the other cookbook and diet books that didn’t help.

Extreme dieting and detoxing doesn’t maketh a sustainable healthy change.

As a health psychologist, I am interested in anything to do with health (obviously), so I am all up for increasing my knowledge in anything and everything to do with keeping one’s body in tip top condition.

In fact, I am a kale-drinking, non-meat eating owner of a massive bookshelf full of self help woo-woo books. So I am hardly one to not be interested in new ways of living healthy.

I also think it is important that we evolve as human beings and continue to come up with new ideas. In fact, it is crucial for us to have people contributing to knowledge and new ways of thinking and sharing what worked for them.

I just think that before we get lit up by the big blue eyes of our favourite TV personality who has just written a book about how they lives have been transformed by a new way of eating, we need to stop and have a think. A big think.

Everyone is an expert on food and exercise these days. However, just because they are on TV doesn’t mean they are right. We need to remember that anyone can write a book. Or create a website. Or write a blog. Their advice are usually based on personal beliefs or opinions rather than scientific evidence, which means that they are not necessarily correct. Opinions can be wrong.

If a product is marketed well, it will sell. It doesn’t mean it is the best product or the right product for us.

The hot celebrity with a cookbook is always going to have higher sales than the lesser-known dietician with a cookbook.