So fellow yoga teachers, I implore you: please stop giving potentially harmful dietary advice to your students. You are looked up to, and your advice may be taken seriously.
Of those, 20-25% progress to partial or full-syndrome eating disorders PLEASE do not pressure students to
go vegetarian in order to be healthier and prove that they care about animals and the environment (I’m sure they already do). Please don’t simplify the vegetarian issue down to ethics alone. Whilst this is important, the biological suitability of a vegetarian or vegan diet variesWILDLY from one person to another. Going vegetarian can be great for
some people, at certain life stages, for a certain period of time or disease state. But it’s not the healthiest option for absolutely everyone. I feel this to be true from personal experience living as a vegetarian and vegan for a decade...But more importantly from clinical experience working with people suffering from being on an innately restrictive diet for far too long. The diet that heals isn’t always the diet that sustains. PLEASE refrain from suggesting
intermittent fasting or skipping meals to improve digestion and lose weight. When you tell a room full of female
students to cut out at least one meal per day, you are speaking to a room of predominantly 18-42 year old women, of whom statistically 1 in 100 will have full blown anorexia nervosa, and a significant chunk will already have a disordered relationship with food. You are speaking with a population
(students and women) for which the incidence of bulimia is estimated to be 1 in 5 (5). You are speaking to a group of women of whom, even if they are within a normal healthy weight range, only 22% are happy with their weight. Almost three quarters of these women desire to weigh less, including 68% of healthy weight and 25% of underweight women (6). Please, just don’t go there. Because
people are not just bodies, projects to be improved and slimmed down and detoxed. We are whole human beings, as our beloved yoga philosophy tries to teach us time and time again. Yoga teachers: please stop giving
potentially harmful dietary advice to your students. Yoga teachers, if you are called upon to give any nutritional advice, make it an
extension of the original yoga philosophy of knowing and trusting oneself, not an extension of your latest detox. Direct them to some non-diet approaches such as Health at Every Size, Intuitive Eating, the Body Positive movement, or any number of arising approaches and practitioners that take a whole person’s health into account, not just how good they look in a pair of Lululemon tights or how clean their gut is. Yoga students, please don’t ask your
yoga teacher what, how, or when you should be eating. They don’t know, because only you can discover that information. If there’s an issue with it, you should probably bring it to someone who can take your individualised requirements into consideration. A full list of references for this article can be found on at
livingnow.com.au n
References for this article are to be found on the website version:
www.livingnow.com.au
Connect with other readers & comment on this article at
www.livingnow.com.au
Casey Conroy is an Accredited Practising Dietitian, nutritionist, yoga and AcroYoga teacher, and naturopath-in-training who
loves raw chocolate and schisandra berries in her green smoothies. She is the founder of Funky Forest Health & Wellbeing on the Gold Coast, and advocates a practical, fun, and pleasurable approach to nutrition.
Dr Johannes
Specialising in treating: Back & neck pain
Stress
702 Nicholson St, Fitzroy North
03 9917 2470
www.radicalhealth.com.au
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Maehrlein, Osteopath
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Dr Huan Tran,
Osteopath RSI Digestion TAC, DVA & Work Safe Claims APRIL 2017 41 Elizabeth
Humphries, Myotherapist
126100i202
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