Jameela Jamil Explains Why Casual Celeb Posts About Dieting Are Harmful To Teens

Jameela Jamil calls out celebrity diet posts for inadvertently influencing young minds about toxic eating practices

Jameela Jamil has made it her mission to call out diet culture, especially in this new world of social media where a celebrity can casually throw up an Instagram post about her diet, or fast, or “slimming tea” and have no idea just how damaging that message is to an impressionable teenager. Jamil recently called out rapper Cupcakke after she tweeted a photo of her recent weightloss and credited a month long “water fast.”

You or I might see this post and think that a month-long water fast is insane. Can you really do that? Is she really drinking water only for a whole month? Is it even safe? Plus, we have no idea if this person did the fast with the aid of a doctor. When a famous person or an influencer throws up a triumphant photo and credits her month-long water fast, that influencer has no idea how many young impressionable minds may try to mimic this potentially dangerous behavior.

“This is such a dangerous thing to promote,” Jamil wrote on twitter. “Kidney damage, cardiac arrest, IBS, metabolic issues,vital muscle loss, you can faint and hurt yourself. I used to try terrible things like this as a teen, because irresponsible celebs promoted it, and my health has never recovered.”

Jamil got some flack by those who said that she was unfairly targeting this particular rapper, though Jamil explained that she’s not attacking her but using her tweet as an example, which is what she did with the Kardashians and with all the other celebs who do constant diet tea promo, which culminated in Instagram literally changing their advertising policy around diet products.

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/1196097790490710017

“This new celebrity culture of freely omitting fact/side effects should be banned,” Jamil tweeted.

Thanks in part to Jamil’s efforts, Instagram will no longer advertise diet-based products or show photos that include diet products like detox teas to anyone under the age of 18.

Jamil stated that famous people with social media platforms have an obligation to protect their very young fan bases from medically dubious and harmful rhetoric about dieting, and included herself as a former teen who fell prey to an eating disorder after seeing glamorous adults doing the same.

“I was 12 when I started doing this. And don’t think I was stupid. I think I was a kid, and vulnerable and misinformed,” Jamil tweeted.

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/1196123841057046529

“Isn’t it likely that being bombarded with celebrity endorsements of unhealthy diet fads/dodgy non FDA regulated products… with little/no information about side effects is extra harmful?” Jamil asked.

Jamil’s ethos is always to educate, and let’s be real, glamorous photos about medically questionable diets are way too easily accessible on our kid’s screens these days.