Problems in the Fitness Fashion Industry
- The F-Factor diet has been around for years, based on the premise that filling upwards on fiber suppresses appetite and leads to weight loss.
- But the programme and its founder, the dietitian Tanya Zuckerbrot, are now at the center of controversy. Some users have claimed that they experienced health issues, including gastrointestinal distress, eating disorders, hives, hair loss, and menstruation loss while following the diet.
- Insider spoke with four women who say they've experienced such issues. Emily Gellis, an influencer who'south been sharing these anonymous reports, said she'd heard from roughly two,000 people. These iv women and Gellis are calling for more than transparency from F-Factor.
- There'south no proof that F-Factor caused the health problems described in these complaints. Nutrition experts say any restrictive plan can accept adverse health consequences.
- Zuckerbrot denied claims that F-Factor caused eating disorders or other ailments and described the criticism as "slander" from people who are against diets.
- Visit Insider'southward homepage for more stories.
In the summer of 2018, Sami Miller decided to get on a diet. After struggling through various nutrient fads and trying to overcome what she called "bad eating habits," the 24-year-one-time read "The F-Cistron Diet" by Tanya Zuckerbrot, a 2006 book espousing a loftier-fiber nutrition that promised to concur the secret to "permanent weight loss ."
The book and the diet inverse everything about her life, Miller told Insider in a telephone call. She became obsessed with the high-fiber, low-carb, low-calorie eating plan.
But Miller said that while post-obit the diet, she experienced a host of health problems, including severe digestive bug and amenorrhea, or the pausing of period, which is oft linked to anorexia. She told Insider that her doctor said that if she continued on the nutrition, she could go infertile, a complexity of amenorrhea.
Inside a twelvemonth, she said, she'd developed an eating disorder that she believes stemmed from her strict adherence to F-Gene. She ended upwardly at the Monte Nido Eating Disorder Handling Center in New York City, where she recovered after six months of treatment.
"It literally led me to a big depression . I just was, like, isolating myself. I was agape to go out. I was afraid to drink," Miller said. "My whole yr was merely ruined."
Miller is one of four women Insider spoke to who said they had negative experiences they believe are related to F-Cistron, ranging from gastrointestinal issues like gas and bloating to eating disorders, amenorrhea, hair loss, and severe hives. Their stories are anecdotal and don't prove causation.
Nearly ii,000 people, more often than not women, accept anonymously aired similar complaints, according to Emily Gellis, 34, a fashion influencer who has been sharing their experiences on her Instagram account since the leap.
But F-Cistron'south founder and CEO, Tanya Zuckerbrot, 48, a New York Urban center registered dietitian, denied claims that her diet had acquired physical and mental-health bug, telling Insider in an interview that the accusations were an instance of anti-diet advocacy gone besides far and a harassment campaign to ruin her career.
"The F-Cistron diet followed as prescribed in the 'F-Gene Nutrition' book does non cause pilus loss or loss of a menstrual cycle," Zuckerbrot said.
In her two decades of concern, she said, she's had no wellness-related lawsuits filed against her, "just a lot of slander on social media."
Have a tip about the F-Factor diet? Email these reporters at rgreenspan@businessinsider.com and amiller@businessinsider.com.
The high-fiber, depression-carb diet became a flashpoint on social media when an influencer began posting anonymous complaints on her Instagram stories
The high-cobweb, high-protein, depression-carb diet is based on the premise that fiber fills you lot upward and is calorie-costless, and then eating lots of it — 35 grams daily, significantly more than than the 25 to 30 grams recommended past the American Heart Association — helps forbid hunger, leading to weight loss and other health benefits without having to count calories, restrict alcohol, or fifty-fifty exercise.
The F-Factor website includes recommendations like eating a specific brand of Swedish high-cobweb crackers and following the "three bite dominion," to permit dieters to indulge in treats in a way that won't "destroy your entire 24-hour interval of eating."
In 2018, the diet company introduced its kickoff line of retail products. F-Factor bars and powders pack 20 grams of fiber and poly peptide per serving. That's more than fiber than ii Fiber 1 bars and as much protein as a double-patty hamburger.
As for the diet recommended in the F-Factor volume, which predates the products by more than a decade, readers are warned that they "may experience some initial bloating and abdominal cramps when they begin to eat big amounts of cobweb," specially if they were eating minor amounts before. "It is of import to innovate cobweb slowly," the volume says.
Over the past decade, the high-contour diet program has been featured by several news outlets, including The New York Times, the "Today" show, and the Los Angeles Times.
Gellis, who has 173,000 followers on Instagram, has brought voices of former F-Factor dieters into the spotlight. The influencer said she began receiving direct letters from people claiming they'd experienced serious side effects from F-Factor or its products after she shared complaints she saw almost the nutrition on social media.
Gellis, who has never followed the F-Factor plan herself, posted those bearding complaints on her Instagram stories, leading more than people to share their experiences with the diet and inspiring influencers in the health and wellness space, including some registered dietitians, to vocalization their concerns.
Zuckerbrot addressed the allegations on August xvi, a few months after Gellis' showtime posts about F-Gene. In a statement on Instagram, the visitor said its products were safety and addressed concerns about GI problems, acknowledging that "when fiber is introduced quickly into the diet and in large amounts, symptoms can include gas, bloating and gastric distress."
A mail service shared by F-Factor® by Tanya Zuckerbrot (@f_factor)
On Monday, ane hr after The Times published a story well-nigh the F-Gene controversy, the brand posted a quote from Zuckerbrot. "We have facts and science to back up our results," she said.
Many former followers of the F-Factor nutrition have asked the company to apologize to people who doubtable their symptoms are related to the diet and to release a certificate of analysis, a quality-assurance report that includes the results of lab testing on its products, to validate that the products' advertised nutritional information is authentic and that they don't contain undisclosed ingredients.
Every bit of Tuesday evening, the company had done neither.
Women say their symptoms include hives, digestive distress, and pilus loss
Fernanda Rodriguez, a 25-year-old law student who splits her time between St. Louis, Missouri, and New York City, wanted to lose weight for her hymeneals. In January 2019, she began the F-Factor diet after hearing people in her circle praise it for its ease.
Rodriguez said that despite being open about her history of an eating disorder and gastrointestinal problems, an F-Factor employee encouraged her to get on the nutrition during a free new-client consultation the company was offering at the fourth dimension.
The representative also told her that her by eating disorder was an asset because it showed discipline and that she should avoid cardio exercise considering it would make her hungry, Rodriguez said.
(Zuckerbrot denied these claims and told Insider that an F-Factor employee would be "terminated" for these advisements.)
Rodriguez began the diet anyhow, which, for her, typically included a half a scoop of F-Factor protein powder and two difficult-boiled eggs for breakfast; spinach, craven, and a cheese stick for luncheon, and "pizza" crackers for dinner.
While Zuckerbrot contends that followers of F-Factor aren't told to count calories and the book does not specify a caloric goal, Rodriguez said that when she followed all the recommended recipes, it added upward to fewer than 1,000 a day.
Despite the advice to avoid cardio, Rodriguez continued to run because she knew it was important for her mental health, she said.
Unsurprisingly, she lost weight — 2 to 3 pounds a week — but she too experienced breadbasket hurting and "ridiculous" hives, and she was "losing hair in clumps," she said.
Similar Miller, she also became obsessed with the programme.
"I would go to slumber thinking, 'S---, I only had 32 grams [of fiber] today, allow me just eat half a bar super fast before it's midnight,'" Rodriguez told Insider. "Was I back to throwing up like I did all through high school? I wasn't. Was I still having a consummate disconnect, emotionally and physically, to what I was putting in my body? Yeah."
When the coronavirus pandemic brought her dorsum to quarantine in New York Metropolis, where she didn't have a robust stash of F-Factor products and her married man questioned her eating patterns, Rodriguez's dedication to the plan faded.
Simultaneously, she said, her hair thickened, her hives dissipated, and her stomach pain eased.
Merely she said she didn't put two and two together until her married man pointed it out and health personalities she followed on Instagram began sharing their experiences with the diet.
When she asked if anyone else experienced similar symptoms on the private F-Factor Facebook group, she was kicked out, she said.
She said she was speaking out to push for transparency in the products and acknowledgment of some people'south concerns about the plan.
Aside from the recent acquittance on Instagram and the book's recommendation to add fiber slowly, F-Gene hasn't issued warnings about adverse reactions and has deleted some negative Instagram comments
Some women who spoke with Insider — and who Gellis said reached out to her — said they assumed other bug were responsible for their distress because in that location are few negative reviews on F-Factor's website or Instagram account.
Zuckerbrot told Insider that the company did delete some negative comments from its Instagram folio. "We felt we were following customs guidelines when it was slander," Zuckerbrot said. "When people say, 'Your products have lead and are poisoning people,' or 'I lost my period,' and nosotros know that there's absolutely cypher correlation betwixt our production and those claims, why would you lot leave that there?"
Equally of Tuesday evening, in that location were several negative comments on F-Gene product pages. Reviewing the F-Factor peanut-butter protein bar, ane person said they had "bad stomach aches," while another said the bar tasted "bogus."
Zuckerbrot added that out of the 176,000 unique orders from F-Cistron since 2018, at that place had been only l complaints of adverse reactions to the products. Zuckerbrot said her team believes that those complaints, which all involved either stomach issues or rashes, were due to whey allergies.
Other women say they experienced severe bloating and dangerous swelling on the plan
Some other adult female Insider talked with said she experienced serious digestive distress while on the plan. "I couldn't push my pants. I was extremely uncomfortable, and I didn't know what was wrong with me," she said. The woman told Insider that she didn't want to link her proper noun to the outcome, citing the risk of lawsuits and cyberbullying.
She increased her fiber intake gradually and drank plenty of water — the but solutions F-Factor offered, she said — but her bug didn't go away until she stopped using the products most a twelvemonth after beginning.
Another woman, Anne McCall, 60, who lives in the San Francisco area, said she experienced rashes and center swelling when she started eating F-Factor products.
She said that while she tried changing her eye foam and stopped wearing jewelry and her lookout man, the reaction connected until she stopped her F-Factor smoothies and confined.
Others have told Insider and said via Gellis' Instagram that they had high levels of lead in their claret after consuming F-Factor products, simply Insider was not able to independently approve these claims with medical practitioners. (I of the cardinal components in a certificate of analysis is screening for the presence of heavy metals.) In a statement on Instagram and in an interview with Insider, Zuckerbrot denied those allegations.
Just followers who say they've experienced reactions run across a lack of transparency about what exactly is in F-Factor's products.
"I call back all everyone actually wants to know is what is inside of that stuff that could exist causing all these problems," McCall said, "and nosotros haven't been able to get any answers."
Zuckerbrot said the company should not be expected to release its proprietary product data. Still, she said F-Factor would soon release a document of analysis "as a upshot of misinformation and health accusations" and to validate the condom of the products.
A loftier-fiber diet — or any diet, really — could have health consequences, but F-Factor followers desire transparency
There'southward no proof that the F-Gene diet caused any of the symptoms followers have mentioned.
Diet experts not affiliated with the program said that the symptoms they described would be understandable on whatever extremely high-cobweb, depression-carb, low-calorie program.
Take the corporeality of fiber — 20 grams — in a single serving of an F-Gene product.
"You're basically sitting down to a cup and a half of blackness beans in one sitting," Keri Gans, a registered dietitian, told Insider. "Not to say this is going to affect everybody negatively, simply information technology could."
While the nutrition prescribes 35 grams of fiber a day, about 10 grams more than the US Department of Agriculture's recommendation for women, devout followers are probable eating closer to 40 to 60 grams per twenty-four hours, Tamara Duker Freuman, a registered dietitian who works in a gastroenterology dispensary that's treated F-Factor followers, told Insider.
"And hither's the thing about fiber: All that goes in must come out," Duker Freuman said.
Nutrition experts who spoke with Insider likewise said that claims about F-Factor triggering eating disorders made sense to them — any restrictive eating pattern tin can harm vulnerable people.
"Dieting leads to food and torso preoccupation, overeating and binging, lower self-esteem, weight cycling, and disordered eating behaviors and eating disorders," Alissa Rumsey, a registered dietitian, told Insider.
Undereating can pb to amenorrhea and, in the longer term, increase the adventure of fertility issues and miscarriage. Nutrient deficiencies can contribute to hair loss.
As for complaints about rashes and swelling, they could exist allergic reactions to ingredients in the F-Cistron products, similar the soluble corn fiber or nuts, Gans said.
Zuckerbrot denied claims that F-Gene has led to health bug and eating disorders, and she called the programme a 'lifestyle'
Zuckerbrot described her programme as a "lifestyle" that had worked for her, her family, and thousands of others over the 20 years she's been a registered dietitian.
She told Insider that she believes many of the claims about F-Factor were fabricated by people who are against diets and want to harm the empire she's spent two decades building.
Zuckerbrot said that over the spring and summer, she had faced a harassment entrada on Instagram that largely stemmed from ii anonymous accounts sharing stories of people who had negative experiences with F-Cistron.
Zuckerbrot said those accounts were removed after her team sent them cease-and-desist letters. Soon after that, Gellis began posting almost the controversy, Gellis and Zuckerbrot both said.
Zuckerbrot said she believes that the thousands of direct messages sent to Gellis almost F-Cistron were false.
"The one affair I know with certainty is F-Gene as a plan is safe and sound," she said, "and we too accept thousands of clients that we accept helped to lose weight."
When asked whether she was aware of any people who had struggled with eating disorders as a event of F-Factor, Zuckerbrot said, "The nature of that inquiry just concerns me." She said she had never been made aware of any such complaint.
Zuckerbrot said that if a person following F-Factor adult an eating disorder, the diet shouldn't agree the arraign. "I think any nutrition can lead someone who's not doing it properly or working with professionals to get an eating disorder," she said. Zuckerbrot compared this to an alcoholic blaming the liquor shop for their habit.
But, she said, "the last thing I want to do is blame the victims."
When torso-positivity culture meets diet culture
The backdrop of Gellis' and Zuckerbrot's feud is an industry in flux. Dietitians increasingly advocate body positivity and "wellness at every size" counseling, while programs like Zuckerbrot's F-Factor are considered past many to exist the old guard of diet culture.
Pop nutrition programs like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig have shifted their branding in contempo years to move away from a strictly pro-diet mindset. Simply F-Factor's messaging has largely remained focused on weight loss.
Zuckerbrot said that while she wouldn't encourage an underweight person to lose boosted weight, the company would await to "improve equally an organization" and "take a closer look" at messaging that could be considered harmful.
F-Gene has undoubtedly helped people to lose weight healthfully. But now the visitor'due south success is predicated on a revival of the outmoded pro-nutrition mindset. That's not a line of thinking that's in vogue anymore, and Zuckerbrot knows it. "That's what is sort of pitiful," she said. "It'due south this side by side generation of immature dietitians who hate diets and have an anti-diet message."
Most of the women who spoke to Insider said they had nothing against Zuckerbrot.
"I have no vendetta whatsoever," McCall said.
Rodriguez said she felt bad for Zuckerbrot and F-Factor, "because I don't think they intentionally wanted to hurt anyone."
"But what I expected was more transparency behind the product cosmos and a sincere amends," she said, "and it'south not happening."
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