We need to talk about the health craze in St Andrews – it’s spiralizing out of control

Lately I’ve been finding that my ‘natural’ and ‘unrefined’ lifestyle might be just the most artificial and not quite sin-free pretence. How is it that I am classified and complimented as ‘healthy’ by those around me, when the reality is that scientific classification renders me in bold, red capital letters as a starkly U-N-H-E-A-L-T-H-Y and underweight patient? How is it that on the same street of St Andrews I get cat called for wearing running shorts while only later on the same pavement I am taken aside and told that I need to look after myself and get help from an apparent eating disorder?

The issue is that I am both a victim and culprit of an increasingly ironic craze of ‘health’ – something a lot of us in St Andrews should admit we take too far.

My Body Mass Index has been increasingly wondering from the ‘green’ and healthy zone, yet I get the feeling that I’m becoming ever more hypocritical eulogising the wonders of such green-tinted fads of ‘courgetti’ and of my aesthetic preference for tenderstem broccoli. Are these heroic ‘superfoods’ really that great if they quite haven’t saved me from permanent lethargy and perpetual colds?

My diet is accepted as a cultural norm here; it isn’t accidental that the local Tesco and Sainsbury’s choose to strategically place such clean items of the Pea and Bean seed shot and nakd bar deliberately en route to self-checkout. Or seem to have the wide enough capacity of a metro store to stock Meridian pumpkin seed butter or Edamame bean spaghetti.

Am I the only one to think that the necessity of two zest cafes, the variety of gym wear for sale and also of the opening of a third health food store this October in a town of only three main streets, may in fact be more revealing of an alarming attitude to food and weight, rather than a controlled route to healthy living?

Tesco and Sainsbury’s acting natural at Self-Checkout…

However, I can hardly claim pity and play sufferer and be ‘guilt-free’ of such pressures, when my vanity sustains and in fact encourages it. I readily pay a fee which is completely disproportionate to the size and sustenance of such products. I’m not going to say how much I spend on Manuka honey…or Tahini. So how can I hate expectations put upon me when I ultimately partake in the reason why they increasing to stick and endure to be a normalised and persisting standard? No one forced me to sign up to a Holland and Barrett loyalty card.

This is why it is growing into a big problem. This isn’t just me, this is a lot of girls who come to study here.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that it is harmful to maintain a lifestyle which mainly revolves around vegetables and exercise, in fact I do still think it’s essential to incorporate it.  However I think that we have reached a point now where the lines of what we define of as being truly healthy have become so blurred and I myself have found it dangerously easy to tip over the balance. What I think is important here is to address and expose the problem and try and take things back to moderation. Yes it’s important to be physically active and take advantage of all the nutritional benefits from fruits, nuts and vegetables, but at the same time I think we need to rationalise and reconsider what standards we put on ourselves and on each other of what actually constitutes as ‘health’.