How A Celebrity Profile Set Me Free From Diet Culture
You know those moments where your beliefs are just shattered? Like perhaps when you are in second grade and that one super jaded kid just announces to anyone who will listen, ‘YOU STILL BELIEVE IN SANTA?’ and then gleefully pronouces, ‘HE’S NOT REAL.’ And you’re just fully dejected, but once you pick up the pieces it’s like, holy smokes, what else is a lie and how could I have fallen for this in the first place? (obviously a true story)
Recently, I had my adult SANTA’S NOT REAL?! moment when one of my friends sent me this piece from Jezebel after we attended a particularly spiritually farcical event here in Austin.
As I clicked around all the linked articles, I was struck by this New York Times profile on Moon Juice creator, Amanda Chantal Bacon.
For the uninitiated, Amanda Chantal Bacon (from here forward referred to as ACB), runs a wildly popular trio of juice bars in Los Angeles that are super stylish and v instagrammable. In addition to juices, smoothies, and grab and go snacks, ACB has a massive online offering of protein powders, smoothie add-ins, and healthy snacks which gets plugged on the regular by our girl Gwyneth and more in the wellness world.
On my last trip out to LA this past August, my husband and I gleefully went to her store in Silverlake and split a $20 smoothie. (And for the record, it was delicious, probably the best smoothie I’ve ever had.)
If you just spit out your coffee at the idea of a $20 smoothie, you have to understand that it’s not just a smoothie, it’s a chance for redemption.
ACB’s smoothies and snacks are sold as a completely different class of food than any of us regular people have ever experienced. This is because her food philosophy is pretty out there and you definitely have to be pretty deeply indoctrinated into the alternative wellness sphere to buy in.
For those of us who have been searching for the holy grail through diet and exercise, ACB is a natural extension of the alternative health universe. She’s what you find when you are ready to level up from the world of paleo or Whole30 or you just need a new way to differentiate yourself from those other vegans.
Is it strange to say a celebrity profile changed your life?
I used to fully buy into all of these ideas and spent so much time and mental energy trying to keep up.
Until reading this profile, I believed ACB and others who proselytize ‘ultra clean eating’ (my own term here) were the ultimate gold standard authority in health choices. Every DAMN day that I tried and failed to live up to their rules, I was just falling short of my own goddess transformation. If I kept trying though, I’d be living on that next plane where life is breezy and everything is just nonstop effortless beauty.
But I have been freed because of this paragraph.
“By the time I left Bacon’s house, I wanted to scrub off my makeup and swaddle myself in white cottons and let my hair tumble down my back in sun-lightened coils like hers. I wanted to move to California and eat bee pollen, even though I think bee pollen tastes like the reptile section at the zoo and California is the state where I was born and spent 18 years plotting my escape from, and it can’t be denied that I benefit strongly from makeup. But all of that was wiped away within minutes of meeting this woman, whose ability to perform every action with charisma — whether pouring coconut milk into a pot or requesting a strategy meeting with her staff — seemed a direct result of her dietary choices. I understand that Bacon’s success is a product of ambition, luck, privilege and stamina. So why did I covertly order a 16-ounce sack of bee pollen from Amazon on my phone during a three-minute break in our conversation? The answer is obvious: Bacon is a lifestyle guru, and this is what lifestyle gurus do. They insist on a connection between what you buy and who you are. And then they sell you stuff. If they are Bacon, they also pronounce the word guru “goo-doo,” in what I can only assume is the authentic manner.” — Molly Young, “How Amanda Chantal Bacon Perfected the Celebrity Wellness Business” via New York Times
HOT DAMN. ACB IS JUST A LUCKY BEAUTIFUL PERSON SELLING PRODUCTS BY IMPLICITLY TRADING ON HER BEAUTY AND EVEN IF I DO EVERYTHING SHE SAYS I’M STILL ME AND I CAN’T MAGICALLY BECOME ROSIE HUNTINGTON-WHITELEY JUST BY CHANGING MY FOOD CHOICES.
How did I ever believe this in the first place? Like I said in the beginning, this was my adult Santa moment. (Maybe it’s because we’re sold from such a young age a super narrow definition of beauty and then every sales pitch ever is essentially built on making us seem like we’re not enough?)
Reading this was akin to the first time I heard David Foster Wallace’s This is Water and I was like, OH YEAH OTHER PEOPLE ARE ALSO JUST TRYING TO LIVE THEIR LIVES HERE.
So when Young writes, “[t]he answer is obvious: Bacon is a lifestyle guru, and this is what lifestyle gurus do. They insist on a connection between what you buy and who you are. And then they sell you stuff.” I felt reborn. This is just another sales pitch.
This pressure, this lie that if only I could control my eating, I’d be better was dissolved. ACB was born beautiful and of course I’m sure eating her way makes her extra glow-y, but even if she lived on a diet of burgers, she’d essentially look the exact same. WHY HAD THIS NEVER OCCURRED TO ME? I felt like Jennifer Connelly in the Labyrinth, YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME.
This is what our consumerist and patriarchal culture does though. It tricks us into hyper-focusing on our outer appearance and ties it to our worth.
If I’m honest, trying to fit the beauty standard and the fact that I couldn’t manage the self discipline to look like a model has consumed most of my waking energy and as a result, I’ve lived in a shame spiral for most of my adult life. (THIS IS WHAT OUR SUBLIMINAL ADVERTISING MESSAGES AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA DO)
I’ve cried over acne. I’ve skipped nights out because my clothes didn’t fit. At what point do we just say FUCK THE SYSTEM?
So by the time this article crossed my path, I was ready to see that Young was right. It’s a capitalist and patriarchal win for people like ACB and GOOP who are born with incredible privilege and genes that a smoothie can’t buy.
My worth doesn’t come from my appearance, as much as society tells us it does. When I stick up for my worth in spite of what media forces down our throats, that creates power. All I can ask of myself is to keep going.
