Goodbye Gluten-Free Diet Essay

Throughout history the concept of dieting for cosmetic purposes has resulted in the creation of numerous “fad-diets.” These diets often assist those who are trying to lose weight quickly, but find the weight loss difficult to maintain. In order for most diet-industries to thrive financially, their clients need to continue struggling with weight loss, and thus become reliant on the diet to reach their goals, or the dieter must change their lifestyle and become dependent on the diet psychologically (LA TIMES). Many of these diets often target young, college-aged women between the ages of 18 and 23, who are looking for fast, beautifying fixes to their self-image. Marketers often capitalize on this by placing advertisements and mentions of
Advertisements on social media are also a growing trend, especially regarding these new “fad-diets.” In the 2010’s decade, the most commercially successful fad-diet aimed at this group has been the “gluten-free diet.” A message specifically target at this audience, could be “Goodbye gluten, goodbye muffin
Brands have used this to manipulate customers into buying products and adapting a gluten-free diet out of empathy and fear. One example of this is Jenny McCarthy, a former Playboy model and actress who used her celebrity platform to create a cookbook that attempts to convince readers that a gluten-free diet helped her son “recover from autism.” While scientists have refuted the claim that a diet of any sort can alter autism, McCarthy turned her story into a New York Times best-seller that featured sponsorships from several brands that wanted her to mention their products when listing ingredients or going on talk shows, this applies to a consumers pathos. In order to make the book appeal to a younger audience, McCarthy also gives girls ideas for what to order on dates to maintain the gluten-free lifestyle, and depicts wild stories about her younger years in show