I was browsing Instagram last week for some foodie inspiration under the hashtag #healthyliving and came across a so-called ‘healthy’ breakfast post which was being enjoyed in the sunshine. With a flood of green smoothie shots, bright #eattherainbow salads and homemade recipes plentiful in my Insta feed, I have to admit I was completely oblivious to an entirely different school of thought for what ‘healthy eating’ is. On digging deeper into the hashtags in this breakfast post I discovered that there is in fact a whole slimming world/weight-watchers movement out there, with over 2million posts alone dedicated to #swmafia (slimming world mafia). A cosa nostra of slimming world and weight watcher champions, if you will.
The breakfast in the sun pictured above is described as two slices of buttered bread (no idea what ‘hexb’ means), some ‘free’ ham (presumably not gifted by her butcher) and a precise 25g of cheese. Can anyone enlighten me on ‘hexa’ cos I’m pretty sure it is not a variety of cheese?
Let’s check out Weight Watchers mission statement. It reads: “To help people reach and maintain a healthy weight and bring health through tasty, nutritious and affordable food.” Hmmmm.
Do they mean helping people with this “nutritious” Beef Lasagne which contains over a quarter of an adults recommended daily intake of salt? Are they assisting our “health” with over 10g of sugar in a single serving? At least their choice of “affordable” can be justified with the miserable addition of beef to the affair – a paltry 13%. Wonder what the other 87% of this ‘beef’ lasagne is made up of? A considerable amount of water anyway – the biggest ingredient in the “meal”.
The hashtag #mafia is making some sense now – a life eating points and hexa/heba is an unsustainable, depressing and unhealthy lifestyle but these multinational corporations are cashing in the dirty money big time. These global corporations are killing the joy that real, wholesome food can bring with the ridiculous counting & weighing nonsense. And they are filling up their customers with nothing short of junk.
A little silver lining though, folks. Weight watchers Inc (a listed company) have reported steadily declining revenues with net sales plummeting almost 40% in the last 5 years. Here’s hoping the trend will continue.
Anyone in agreement at all or what is healthy eating to you?
catherine allen 