Consequently, hosting a lavish banquet or ordering lobster is no longer a sufficient signifier of status; today, a sign of true wealth is the ability to forgo food entirely. Eating essentially betrays a person’s most basic human needs; in an era obsessed with ‘self-optimisation’, not eating suggests that a person is somehow ‘beyond’ needs and has achieved total mastery of their body with a heightened capacity for efficiency and focus.
“There is a history in Judeo-Christian societies – and likely in many other religions, hence the widespread practice of fasting – where demonstrating a lack of need for material things, especially food, and being able to demonstrate self-control and discipline are signs of spiritual transcendence,” Dr Woolhouse says. Famously, Italian saint Catherine of Siena would fast for prolonged periods of time as a means of demonstrating her devotion to God through extreme self-control. “But there’s also a class dimension to this,” Dr Woolhouse continues, “because being able to demonstrate a lack of need for material goods, like food, suggests social transcendence too; it’s symbolic of living a life whereby our material needs aren’t a daily concern.” She adds that “fad diets are very unlikely to take off in societies where there are food shortages or food insecurity.”
It’s still jarring to watch celebrities openly admit to fasting for 23 hours a day or taking 14 different supplement pills in lieu of a balanced breakfast. “It normalises and sanctions practises that in other contexts would be regarded as eating disordered,” Dr Woolhouse says. “When eating practices are packaged as ‘done in the name of health’, they are more socially acceptable and difficult to contest.” She points out that a normal teenage girl restricting her diet in the same way as Johnson would likely be regarded as ill and in need of medical intervention. “What we, as a society, regard as ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ eating is contextual and largely rides on how those eating practices are framed.”
It’s obvious but bears reiterating that extreme, fad diet trends are both ineffectual and dangerous. But this trend isn’t really about food or health. It’s about performance. It’s a way for the moneyed classes to signal their wealth and status and posture as above us mere mortals who debase ourselves by eating.
