The Skinny on Weight Loss Kulture

The Skinny on Weight Loss Kulture

• Saturday, 9 November 2019

Kardashian Kulture - 'tea,' for want of a better word.

Ok, that was hardly original but, hey, maybe I caught your attention.

Before I begin shitting* on this detox-tea-laxative-Kulture (*yep, pun intended), I want to make a quick disclaimer. By no means do I want to offend anyone using or promoting these products. I'm not here to shame or 'cancel' any influencers I namedrop in this essay. I'm not targeting anyone; I'm not a bully or anything like that.

I'm just being honest because - let's be real - it's about time someone was.

This past Wednesday, Kim Kardashian-West revealed to The New York Times, alongside her mother, that she’s pretty chill when it comes to her acceptance of paid ads because the money goes to her prison reform work.

“If I have a paid post that comes in and I think, ‘ok, well this can fund x amount of people that are behind bars, that can help free them with simple legal fees that they just can’t afford, then that would be worth it to me, even if the post might be a little bit off-brand for me,’” she said. “I really weigh out different things now than I used to.”

Weigh out? Hilarious. Couldn’t have punned it better myself, Ms Kardashian-West. I’ll give you that.

But, on a more serious note, what is this stuff? Seriously? What is this?

The mountain of data we sit on indicates that the pseudoscience of celebrity, specifically the Kardashian, K(c)ulture of weight loss, is built on nothing but laxative lies. 

Claims of needing to "beat the bloat" and to hit a "goal weight by 40" with the help of products like Detox Shakes and Flat Tummy Teas lead to approximately 23,000 A & E visits every year in the USA. The statistics provided by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that half of these visits are made by young girls, aged between 5 and 19, who have taken some kind of weight loss or energy supplement. 

Thank u Flickr for the photo, I appreciate u xo

Now, I'm not saying Kim Kardashian, her sisters, or other celebrity influencers are straight up liars - yet, anyway. They could easily be scapegoats. And I'm not here to shit* (DJ KHALED...anotha pun) on them; they are their own people; they have their own social media pages and can make whatever decisions they want. Should they choose to promote the pseudosciences of a weight loss myth, that's cool with me. Well, it's not really, but that's a different blog post. 

What I'm wanting to get at today is the link KKW makes between detox products and prison reform. 

Claiming that spon-con funds her prison reform campaigns? Oh my god. Wow. 

Ms. Kardashian-West, I want to like you. I really do. At times, I think you're business-savvy and, with the help of your intelligent, albeit manipulative, mother, you've marketed on what was something of a public disaster and have since built an empire. I like to think that you and your family, as entertaining as you are to follow on social media, are hard-working. When I heard about your desire to train as a lawyer and make some headway into the world of prison reform, I applauded you. I thought "with her massive platform...why not?"

But, in the space of thirty seconds, you ruined it all. 

Your claim that sponsored posts helped fund your prison reform angle liquified what could have been a hugely respected passion project into laxative shite. The dollar bills you make from each post claiming that "you love this tea" and "it helps beat the bloat" may as well be used to wipe your arse because, from my perspective, that's all it's good for. 

No law degree can erase or change the fact that influencers such as Kim Kardashian-West, her younger sibling Kylie Jenner, Cardi B, and so many others, are responsible for contributing to a generation of young people suffering with eating disorders. 

And I'm just so confused as to why KKW had to link her social media content to prison reformation? How on earth can a woman who has so much money need to post sponsored content to fund what could be, for instance, a massively successful charity campaign? Is it simply just greed? Am I missing something here?

As your many followers rest on their knees, heads dipped into the toilet bowl, vomiting up what little food they ate today, you sit in your Beverley Hills mansion with walls that are tainted green – not with the millions of dollar bills you earned from just one Flat Tummy Shake post, but with the green-tea-infused-diarreah of thousands of people whose arseholes are burning with shame, secrecy and a desire to be just like you. But...not really like you, right? "Off-brand", remember?

You're advocating for prison reform, and that's something I whole-heartedly respect. But you may as well rewrite the law in a pen that uses the vomit of your followers instead of ink because, babe, you're not really making a difference. Not from what I can see, anyways. You're simply feeding* (*pun, yep – you guessed it – intended) into the society you supposedly want to change, make better, make fairer.

Tell me how it is fair that you manipulate vulnerable young people. Tell me how you taking their money, admitting its not always legit, and using it to fund your prison reform project is fair. Please. No, genuinely - I would love it if you could explain it to me because, from over here, I'm struggling to see any correlation between your Instagram feed and suffering prisoners.

As Jameela Jamil (a T4 and Twitter LEGEND!) so incredibly and articulately put, these Instagram influencers simply feed into the whole game. Jamil calls them "agents of the patriarchy" and I completely agree. The only difference is that it's just moved from whispers in the corridor of a long-time establishment right into the digital age, confronting us 24/7. Maternity leave queries and diet pills - all different branches of the same tree. 

And it no longer makes me angry. It used to. I used to rage at these kinds of posts because of the way it used to trigger people I know (and me sometimes) into a body dysmorphic downward spiral. And I was so embarrassed at first, because I thought I was so much stronger and capable than all that. I didn’t think I could be so malleable and vulnerable at the hands of a fucking picture, of all things. But, it's different now; I no longer am ashamed of the way I, amongst thousands, could have easily fell victim. I cringe, yeah, sure. But not at myself.

I feel sad for you promoters and influencers, instead. Seeing those kinds of posts make me sad; like, I'm sat writing this and my eyes are stinging and my chest is tight and all I want to do is give you a big hug because, clearly, you're struggling with all of this too.

That's what I tell myself, anyway. I have to. You must be finding all of this so painful to do. I don't want to believe that another human being - especially a parent - can be as cold and as calculating as to promote products that slowly kill the bowels and brains of young people. All for another couple of Ks.

Greed? Maybe. Gross? Definitely. Keep your million-dollar-paycheque, influencers. I’m happy it’s worth it. Just know that your new car doesn't run on petrol or diesel or electric charge; it's runs on the churning vomit of your followers. Each time you rev your engine and drive just that bit faster down Rodeo Drive or by Bondi Beach or wherever you've just bought your new apartment with marble countertops to display your Detox Shake, let the sound of it echo in your brain. If you listen hard enough, you might be able to hear the rumbling, rotting stomachs of all those people who have bought into your cold, calculating greed.