There's nothing "horrific" about a muffin, Hungry Girl
That evening I typed "costco chocolate muffin calories" into google - side note: I have NOT counted a single calorie for almost six months. I practice intuitive eating, and thought my followers might benefit from seeing what a day's worth of intuitive eating looked like. It ended up being about 2500-2800 calories and my point was to eliminate fear of eating more than 1200-1500 calories and reinforce that weight can be maintained on a higher intake. The very FIRST hit, the first bit of information I was given regarding Costco's chocolate muffins, was a snippet from hungry-girl.com. Check it out below.
I'm sorry, WHAT? Let's get one thing straight, Hungry Girl, the only muffin mishap going on here is your mediocre portrayal. There is absolutely NO excuse for your behavior or the Costco-sized stain you have left lying around the internet for impressionable, young girls to find. Are you really so desperate to sell copies of your cookbooks that you have to resort to scare tactics that foster a range of eating disorders? Yikes!
In the introduction alone Hungry Girl has already set up her readers to think of not just chocolate muffins, but a chicken noodle dish and beef stew as something revolting and continues to reinforce that they are revolting if they eat these foods. In what world does a dish warrant shuddering fear? Not one I want to raise my future son or daughter in, that's for sure.
Let's take a look at Marie Calendar's One Dish Classics Chunk Chicken Noodles. According to Hungry Girl, eating anything with "chunky" in the name will make you chunky too. So how does that one work exactly? If I only eat half of the noodles will only one of my butt cheeks swell to ungodly size? C'mon. Stop fat shaming and stop food bashing. This fear tactic is cheesy no doubt, but I know there are people out there that will read this and take it to heart instead of brushing it off for the absurd lie it is.
Get Angry. Get Typing. Be Heard.
Hungry Girl has more of a following than any of us alone, but together we can send her a message. Join my call to action and let Hungry Girl know that we are not what we eat or the size of our bodies. Let her see the pictures of muffins, pizza, ice cream, chili, frozen meals, etc. on the blogs of those who she has condemned and let her read our stories about eating disorders and recovery. GET. HER. ATTENTION. I don't want one more girl to google a muffin and be bombarded with messages convincing her that food - any food - is the enemy. So share this post on your blog, your instagram. Insert the link or quote a paragraph. Post a picture of Hungry Girl with the caption "Call to Action: Hungry-Girl.com Stop Making Young Women Feel Horrific For How They Eat". Re-tweet the message I sent her (my twitter is also healthyezsweet). Let's get some media attention. This ends now.