Tribalism

Tribalism has been a net positive for us as a human race. Our fear of outsiders inoculated us from foreign disease and potential genetic interlopers. We supported each other in hunting and foraging and domestic chores. It was a mutually beneficial exercise in preserving our genetic makeup for the generations that would follow.

Today we live in a world disconnected from our origins. We have vaccines to protect against illness. We have grocery stores to get our food and governments and police and military for order and protection. We don’t “need” a tribal structure to survive but the desire that dwells deep within our evolutionary history won’t quit. So we create them.

We form tribes around our gods and our nations and our politics. Now we have even begun to form tribes around the way we exercise and the food we eat. As ridiculous as this sounds to me there is a huge financial benefit for many to perpetuate this tribalism (as a professional I don’t care how anyone eats or trains unless they hire me).

Keto, Carnivore, Vegan, South Beach, gluten free, dairy free, low carb, high carb; these names don’t mean anything. They are just what we refer to as ad libitum diets. They exist by limiting or eliminating certain foods or food groups. Most originated from some medical need or dietary constraint but not as tools for weight management. However, when we eliminate foods we often see a decrease in weight.

Unfortunately, “all diets end in cupcakes”- Ben House.

While I don’t find ad libitum diets to be ideal and/or sustainable for long term weight management, they are tools that I won’t dismiss out of some tribal identity. When we wrap our identity around our dietary choices we dismiss critical thinking and we become mouthpieces for bias. That’s not beneficial to anyone. Not the collective and not the whole. We say things as fact that are not supported by evidence and when confronted with what the evidence does support we retreat to the comfort of our tribe and their bias, often using the word “science” as a defense even in our lack of understanding research.

I don’t prefer an ad libitum diet for most clients but I will defend their efficacy in certain situations as the evidence supports, just as I will support my own preferred approach. But if anyone follows blindly and tries to assign a name or tribal identity to what I do I will be the first to shut it down. We need more critical thinking, not more gurus and food tribes.