People decide to follow a vegan diet for many reasons. For me, it was a combination of inspiring moments that led me to go plant-based in 2006. A lot of my friends were making the switch from vegetarian to dairy-free, I was reading Peter Singer’s essays on animal rights and I’d just freaked myself out by watching Earthlings – a harrowing documentary on the horrors of the meat industry narrated by Joaquin Phoenix.
Back in the early aughts vegan options were fairly limited, unlike today where you’ll find plant-based meals on every menu, dedicated aisles in supermarkets and vegan food in your favourite takeaways and fast food joints. I often feel this development is bittersweet, given how difficult I found it to eat vegan at any standard restaurant in 2006.
Flash forward and 2019 was dubbed ‘the year of the vegan’ by The Economist. Veganism was everywhere – celebrities endorsed and lauded the lifestyle choice, Veganuary was born, swaps were easy to make and every cookbook section was awash with plant-based offerings. You could eat all your favourite foods with no sacrifices and new innovations in plant-based food were being made every day.
However, by this point, I was no longer calling myself a vegan. After a series of health issues, I gave up on veganism and went omni in 2018. Since then, I’ve seen countless other celebrants of the movement do the same. Lizzo is the latest celebrity to announce she’s no longer vegan. In an Instagram post captioned, “What I eat in a day as a former vegan” the singer eats egg whites and chicken while explaining that she’s “reintroduced protein” to her diet.
Lizzo explains in her video that, “after tests and research I found that animal proteins helped me to have more energy, lose weight and helped with my mental fog. I do believe that the vegan diet is still the healthiest diet to have and I aspire to one day be a raw, alkaline vegan. Until then, this is the diet that’s helped me reach my goals and helped me feel good in my body.”
Lizzo isn’t the only person who’s cited health reasons for deciding to resume an animal-based diet. Miley Cyrus, Serena Williams, Channing Tatum and Beyonce were once advocates of veganism before making a U-turn due to feeling less vital and healthy while following a plant-based diet. Wednesday actor, Jenna Ortega said in an interview with Wired in September that, “I don’t think I was meeting my nutrition requirements, so I started eating fish again.” And Anne Hathaway says her brain felt like a “computer rebooting” after ending her vegan diet.
I personally started out as a die-hard believer in the diet and its benefits. I used to be defensive when people asked me where I got my protein from. I’d spout stats about plant protein and recite the heart and gut health benefits of being vegan. But that didn’t improve on the fact that I experienced low energy, brain fog, muscle pain and headaches frequently. I often felt lightheaded, I bruised easily and I was always tired, not to mention very underweight for my height and age.
Perhaps I just wasn’t doing veganism correctly – it was harder back then. However, these days it’s easier than ever and yet swathes of people are still switching to omnivorous diets and citing wellbeing as the reason. This all seems a little strange, given that veganism was largely celebrated as the gold standard for improved health and wellness just a few years prior.
Veganism, after all, has been widely studied and the impacts of a plant-based diet on the health of some individuals have been shown to be significant. “The benefits of plant-based wholefoods for weight management, gut health, exercise recovery and reducing the risk of lifestyle disease, such as cardiovascular disease, are well documented,” says vegan health coach, Vanessa Sturman.
Sturman explains that “Nutrition education in this country is very poor, which is reflected by many of our biggest killers having a heavy nutrition factor. This, coupled with huge amounts of misinformation online, means some people may struggle when trying a vegan diet. They may not understand how to fill their plate with a healthy balance of complex carbohydrates, protein and healthy fats. Any poorly planned diet will create issues. Unfortunately, many celebrities and influencers try very restrictive forms of diets – including forms of plant-based eating that no respected nutrition expert would recommend, which of course will eventually cause health issues.”
Misinformation has caused many people to distrust veganism. Documentaries such as Cowspiracy and The Game Changers prompted accusations of cherry-picked research, massaged statistics and propagandist rhetoric. And influencers have of course had a part to play here too. Several influencers have given advice on how to consume a raw vegan diet despite not actually following this diet themselves, and tragic incidents regarding influencers following strict vegan diets have resulted in malnutrition and even death.
But it’s not just the vegan diet that receives the all-or-nothing treatment. Social media is awash with bizarre “what I eat in a day” videos showing muscle-bound influencers consuming slabs of raw beef, gallons of raw milk and gnawing at chunks of parmesan cheese with nary a vegetable in sight. A balanced diet, this is not.
This kind of extreme selective eating has been debunked by a raft of nutrition experts and resulted in the de-platforming of influencers like Brian Johnson AKA The Liver King – a man who promoted the muscle-boosting benefits of consuming primarily raw unprocessed organs but who actually relied heavily on thousands of dollars worth of steroids each month to achieve his physique and peddled potentially harmful pseudoscience to those following his “ancestral diet”.
According to psychotherapist Eloise Skinner, “There’s research to suggest that we’re influenced by the way other people eat, including people we know, and also wider trends that take place on a social level, within the media we consume and [as a result of] shared norms and beliefs.”
She explains that “when it comes to influencers and trends specifically, we know that human behaviour can be hugely influenced by people we consider to be aspirational figures and that social platforms can significantly shape behaviour in relation to food consumption. This might be a product of the high volume of information that we’re exposed to – as the trend cycle accelerates, and we’re aware of an increasing amount of information about the world, we might feel less able to stick to any particular routine, trend or guideline. Instead, we might feel caught up in the cycle of new information, shifting our perspective each time we’re exposed to a change of narrative, especially since food trends are often closely linked to the sale of wellness-related products.”
Ultimately, it’s much easier to jump ship from one extreme belief system to another if someone you admire has done the same thing. This is perhaps why we’re witnessing such a significant shift in what we collectively consider to be the healthiest lifestyle choices.
However, highly restrictive eating of any kind probably isn’t good for you, however, you choose to do it. What works well for one person may not work for another. “We all have genetic differences, affected by stress and our environments,” explains registered nutritionist Karen Preece Smith.
And of course, there’s no silver bullet when it comes to our health. Veganism might not be perfect, just as eating large amounts of animal protein might not be perfect. “Misinformation, insufficient nutritional education and often lack of guidance from some health professionals can limit people’s knowledge and therefore, choices,” says Sturman. “A varied diet is essential for all humans. We know that having a wide variety of plant-based whole foods is a great way to maintain good gut health, with research indicating 30 different plants a week, no matter what your nutritional preference.”
“Many omnivorous diets are lacking nutrients or involve overconsumption, which we see from over a quarter of UK adults living with obesity in 2024 and close to 4 million diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Omnivorous diets can be too high in saturated fat and cholesterol, which contribute to potentially fatal conditions like heart disease, and are often deficient in fibre; around 9 in 10 people in the UK are not getting enough fibre and less than a third of adults are eating five pieces of fruit and vegetables each day.”
Ultra-processed foods also have a lot to answer for when it comes to the argument for or against veganism. Coaches like Sturman claim that by eating a diet that consists of whole foods, it’s entirely possible to feel healthy while following a plant-based diet. However, the wide availability of processed meat alternatives and their popularity has drawn criticism from nutritional experts as many people choose these over whole foods when following a vegan diet. Many ultra-processed vegan foods lack the essential nutrients required for a healthy balanced diet which could be what’s leading to the health issues many people are reporting after going vegan.
Then again, there’s no denying that even a whole-food vegan diet without any ultra-processed additions lacks some essential nutrients too. “Vegan diets are deficient in B12 and low levels are associated with tiredness, fatigue and impaired mitochondrial function,” explains Preece Smith.
“You can ‘balance your amino acids’ if following a healthy vegan diet by combining grains and beans within a meal, but without this many vegan clients become deficient in amino acids as only animal-based sources contain the full complement, needed for hormonal and neurotransmitter health.”
Experts warn against tailoring your diet according to trends, and obviously just because a celebrity has championed vegan, animal-based or any other kind of diet, it doesn’t mean it will be right for you. However, if you’re feeling unwell because of what you’re eating or not eating, regardless of what you believe constitutes ‘wellness’, it could be time to make a change.
Skinner says that “when it comes to health and wellness, each individual may well benefit from a different approach, so while some people might prefer a structured, organised diet, others might prefer to eat more intuitively or flexibly. These types of decisions will, of course, also be based on each individual’s lifestyle, working patterns and everyday routines, as well as other aspects of their life such as stress levels and personal values.”
“If a particular diet feels forced, unduly restrictive or influenced heavily by social media or other external sources, individuals should be careful that it doesn’t have an overall negative impact on their life. For example, if a restrictive diet is making it hard to socialise, be spontaneous, or enjoy a diverse range of foods, it might be better to aim for a balanced approach.”
Read more: A vegan diet can reduce your biological age, new study finds
