No diet, no detox: how to relearn the art of eating

Bee Wilson’s contemporary article in The Guardian aims to persuade the

reader to rethink their approach to food and eating through the
formulation and development of an argument that suggests that eating
for good health is a form of learned behaviour. The basis for good eating
is a psychological attitude that can be learned or, where people have
fallen into poor eating habits, relearned. Wilson argues that there is
nothing that is inevitable about our eating habits, particularly the
adoption of unhealthy habits, and this is evidenced by those people who
already eat in a way that supports their health and wellbeing.

The article, published in early January, is part of a cultural trope in

‘Western’ societies in which people often try to make a change or
improvement to their lives in the new year. Often this change involves
improving health and fitness, and can involve weight loss. Wilson’s
article is similar to other work in this genre in suggesting that readers
have a choice in changing their attitudes and behaviour. In fact, this
forms part of the article’s central thesis: People do have a choice, and
there is nothing inevitable about what we eat and the ways we eat it.
This is clearly fundamental to the function of persuasion; without real
choice or a sense of having choice, readers cannot really be persuaded
to change their approach to eating. Of course, Guardian readers are
likely to be relatively wealthy and middle class. To the extent this is the
case, they probably have the financial means to choose what they eat.
The article is, however, atypical of its genre in that it does not suggest a
‘quick fix’, as is made clear in the headline which promises the reader
“no diet, no detox”. Separated by a colon, the headline offers the reader

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the alternative of “relearn(ing) the art of eating”. Framed as a “how to”
guide, the headline, establishing the notion of eating as an “art”, has an
esoteric connotation that may appeal to readers of The Guardian. The
headline, in fact, represents the article’s overall persuasive argument
that good eating is less about what people do and more about the ways
they think about food and the attitudes they establish over time.

After the headline and byline, the multimodal article opens with an
attractive image of various fruits and vegetables on silver forks. The food
is depicted in a variety of vibrant, saturated colours that are in raw,
uncooked form. In addition, front lighting causes the fruit, vegetables and
forks to shine. Presented as ‘bite-size’ morsels, the foods are likely to
appeal to the reader, and there is a clear suggestion that these foods
represent nutrition and can contribute to good health. Arguably, the
foods in the image are a metonym for ‘healthy eating’, and while the
inclusion of foods such as broccoli seem cliched, the close shot image
suggests that the forks are being lifted towards the mouths of readers,
persuading them to ‘relearn eating’ by trying the food being offered.

Early in the article, Wilson establishes a sense of what “out relationship

with food has become”. Using a negatively connoted lexical cluster of
words drawn from the argot of psychology, she suggests that people’s
connection to food is “disordered… obsessive… a struggle” and a
source of “anxieties”. The hyperbolic metaphor, “diet madness”
reiterates Wilson’s argument around our present-day dysfunctional
attitudes to food. Such a negative portrayal of modern eating is unlikely
to persuade readers on its own. Notably, she writes that “our relationship
with food has become disordered and obsessive”, and this present

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perfect construction implies that things were not always like this and can,
presumably, change and improve in the future. In the next sentence, she
confirms this when she writes that “it needn’t be such a struggle to learn
good eating habits”. This is likely to persuade the reader of her argument
and to continue reading. It is, after all, appealing to read that problems
can be quickly fixed without too much of a struggle. In the following
paragraph, Wilson reiterates her thesis. Rejecting the idea that there is
one panacea or other ‘quick fixes’ to harmful eating habits, she argues
that “how we eat – how we approach food – is what really matters”, and
that this is “a question of psychology as much as nutrition”.

Developing her ‘psychological’ argument, Wilson claims that part of the

problematic relationship people have to food derives from the sense that
our eating habits are an unalterable aspect of our identity. She writes
that, “our tastes follow us around like a comforting shadow… as if our
core attitudes to eating are set in stone.” Both the simile and idiom
function rhetorically to confirm that such beliefs are simply wrong, a point
she emphatically makes in the final sentence of this paragraph where
she claims that “nothing could be further from the truth”. To persuade
readers further, Wilson restates her point in a short, one-sentence
paragraph that draws attention to itself. She writes that “all foods that
you regularly eat are ones that you learned to eat. Everyone starts life
drinking milk. After that, it’s all up for grabs”. The concluding idiom
remakes Wilson’s central claim that eating habits are not fixed but
learned, and that, beyond early infancy, people have a choice in what
they eat.

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The following paragraphs extend Wilson’s persuasive argument. Again,
her main rhetorical strategy is contrast. She describes “today’s food
culture” as “homogenous (and) monotonous… (providing the) illusion of
infinite choice”. These “industrial concoctions”, processed, and high in
sugar and salt represent a “danger”. Such harmful foods are contrasted
with “the more varied flavours of traditional cuisines”. Readers are
permitted to determine themselves what exactly “traditional cuisines”
are, but the initial image that introduces the article provide an important
clue. Wilson’s assertion is extended by the inclusion of accessed voices,
refencing a 2010 study, and providing a sense of ethos to her claim that
poor eating habits and associated develop from childhood through a
“self-perpetuating cycle”. While Wilson’s ‘behaviourist’ claims develop
from logical argumentation, this logos is reinforced by pathos; for
Guardian readers who are also parents, they may be further persuaded
by suggestions that modern eating habits may harm their children.

In the final paragraph of the article, Wilson lampoons the ways we

socialize children to eat, describing as “weird” and “arcane” the way that
parents often go to great lengths to disguise healthy foods prepared for
children. Using a lexical cluster of words such as “hide”, “conceal”, and
“smuggle” she suggests that there is something dishonest in these
practices. Here, Wilson returns to her initial argument in which she
claims that our modern approach to food has become dysfunctional and
flawed. Throughout the article, Wilson uses various forms of synthetic
personalization, including the repetition of personal pronouns such as
“you” and “our” which intend to ‘close the gap’ between the text and the
reader, persuading them, by asking the actual reader to adopt the
perspective of a compliant, ideal reader. This is particularly apparent in

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the final paragraph where readers may recognise themselves or can
empathise with the person who will go to great lengths to disguise
broccoli in children’s food.

Wilson’s article aims to persuade readers through a structure of contrast,

arguing that current contemporary attitudes to food verge on madness.
This, however, is not inevitable or irreversible, and that without fixating
on particular diets or foodstuffs, we can alter our eating habits through
altering our habits of mind. In making this argument and in trying to
persuade the reader of it, she writes, in the language of psychology, with
great authority and some originality; change your mind about food and
everything else will follow, she seems to suggest. Readers, of course,
may not be persuaded. In part this is because Wilson does not clearly
specify what healthy eating is or how we should source and cook food,
and she does not tell readers how exactly they should change their
mind. Other readers may prefer to enjoy January as much as possible
without reading articles that imply they are at least inadequate, if not
slightly insane.

1354 words

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