Monday, September 29, 2008

Gee, thanks, WebMD!

Once my nutritionist confronted me about where I'd picked up all my ideas about "good" and "bad" foods. At that point I was a) in denial and b) not in my sharpest mental state, so I said something along the lines of, "I dunno ... WebMD?" She was appalled that anything on WebMD could have given me that idea.

Well, Dr. Wade, sorry to disappoint you, but I got a delightful little newsletter from WebMD today. The subject line read "Fattening Fall Foods: Resist the Temptation!" Inside there was a link to a slideshow of supposedly terrifying foods. Granted, I'm pathological - the majority doesn't take these kinds of messages literally. But while a relatively small percentage of us have an eating disorder, I'd wager quite a few more people have some kinds of struggles with food. Telling us to cower before the Halloween candy doesn't help. WebMD still has a modicum of legitimacy - if they want to keep it, they need to stop telling us to be afraid of food.

**EDIT: Jim found this for me, and I think this might be the one food-type product of which one might be legitimately afraid. If only because it is a $22 caramel apple. Shit fire.

1 comment:

licketysplit said...

oh.my.gosh. that is so ridiculous! unfortunately, oftentimes, the respectable "medical community" feeds into eating disordrs almost as much as the media. blah.