“In September, Jamie Nadeau, a 32-year-old nutritionist based in Massachusetts, posted a TikTok that went semi-viral. “Is 1,200 calories right for you?” she asked in a voiceover while pointing at a MyFitnessPal screenshot and smiling. “Here’s how you know,” she continued. Then she revealed that 1,200 calories is actually only enough daily nutrition if you’re an “8oish lb dog” or a toddler.“
“Every woman of every generation in my family has attempted this diet, from my 65-year-old mother to my 30-year-old cousins. A 1,200 calorie diet, according to most nutritionists or food experts, is a restrictive, unsustainable, likely unhealthy diet for any adult woman.“
“And while 1,200 calories isn’t necessarily enough for most adult bodies, it’s not like it’s a completely arbitrary number; it came from calculations during the late Victorian period, a measurement of calories in, calories out. That kind of weight loss logic has since largely been debunked — there are so many other factors that come into play with weight loss, from hormones to how processed your food is.“
“Eating 1,200 calories a day wasn’t just about keeping your weight under control, it was also about being patriotic: Diet and Health came out around the end of World War I, and while rationing wasn’t law, for some it was important for Americans not to hoard food “in their own anatomy.”“
““The trouble with that is, once you hit your 1,200, and then you eat cake last thing at night, you’re going to feel really upset with yourself, aren’t you, miserable, like you failed, which is ludicrous,” Foxcroft said. “But the whole diet industry works on that, on that misery and that humiliation because you fail. So then you buy some more diet food or another diet book and you try something else, and you fail again.” For most diets, the failure is the point. For a 1,200-calorie diet, the goal is no different: Try it, crash, and then try it again.“