Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts have sprung up all across the land in recent years. The movement has occupied our corporate board rooms, college campuses, bookshelves, and many other spaces. As much as closeted racists dislike the movement using whatever goddamn dogwhistle-of-the-week, it’s clear that the ideology is here to stay. What’s also here to stay is the dietary fad intermittent fasting, which seems to have a peculiar population problem as it relates to DEI. Thus, rather than live in The World of Should, I’m going to embrace reality and talk about how the US brand of starving yourself is whiter than the customer base of Cabela’s. Who knows…this article might just make me a real writer!
So, it’s important to talk about who I’m going to systemically exclude (haha, see what I did there?) from examples. I will not be discussing those who physically cannot eat due to medical issues; I may be aggressive and problematic, but I’m not a complete asshole. In that same vein, I will not be using the food-insecure as a prop either (see above; I’m not a complete shit-stain). Basically, anybody who wants to eat but cannot is out of scope. I’m only going to exploit people who voluntarily sign up for this shit. Hey…don’t look at me like that!
Before I start lobbing accusations, we need to racially profile the typical intermittent faster. To quote Peter Griffin, it’s an awful lot of honkies here. But seriously, it’s almost like the search for this term really started to blow up after Joe Rogan started talking about it on his podcast. So yeah, that should give you a pretty solid peak into the demographics of intermittent fasters (referred to herein as The Community); young white males who think they are getting an edge over everyone else.
The intermittent fasting community likes to pretend that they’ve stumbled onto this profound discovery of human health, as if they accidentally discovered some sort of cheat code in a goddamn video game. However, this isn’t true because one group of individuals have had this practice going for centuries at this point; Muslims. That’s right, the predominant faith of the Middle East has practiced fasting with similar time windows for 30 days of the year every year for nearly a millennia. However, the intermittent fasting community has not embraced Islam.
With that said, there is a great vehicle to selling this to both Muslim’s and dude-bros from The Community; Andrew Tate. The former kickboxing world champion still has a cult-like following, and Tate is a fierce practitioner of The Community. Not only that, but at the height of his pre-arrest fame, Tate converted to Islam. In this aspect, The Community has a marketable figure who can help introduce newcomers into the eating practice who could tip the color scale away from being uniformly Elmer’s Glue.
Another group that seems to be systemically excluded from the intermittent fasting community are drug mules. Yes, you read that correctly, and yes, I’m serious. For those not in the know, drug mules are people who package drugs inside of balloons and then swallow the elongated balloon whole. This is done to serve as a method of transport, though sometimes as a means of initiation as well. There is an inherent trade-off with using this method; while undetectable to even a trained dog, there is a pretty low ceiling as to how much Colombian Nose Candy can be ingested.
“But Dan, what does this have to do with DEI or The Community?” some intermittent fasting dude-bro will ask. I’m glad you asked (and hence took an interest in something besides yourself for once in your fucking life). Drug mules are typically men from Latin America. That’s right John Oliver; Black and Brown communities are disproportionately impacted by The Community’s unconscious bias. Moreso, the drug mule cannot consume any food or beverages until the coke-filled-condoms have passed through the drug mule’s system. Thus, the average dude-bro who is looking to crank up his insulin sensitivity can learn a thing or two from a veteran drug mule. But, will these white yuppies actually reach out to these seasoned Hispanics? Allow me to say it in Spanish; No!
Hindus are yet another group of fasters that have a lot of value to offer The Community…if they were welcomed that is. If The Community thinks they’ve got it down to a ritual, then they should reach out and talk to an Indian at some point. Seriously these Hindu’s ain’t playin’ around. Truthfully, the typical high-income white male can rip a page out of his girlfriend’s playbook on this topic. Posh white women have been pretty ruthless about culturally appropriating the practices of meditation and yoga from the former British colony into their daily lives, and it’s about time the men tried doing so as well.
“But Dan, cultural appropriation and DEI don’t mix!” a DEI activist (probably a white Karen, if we’re being honest here) will protest. While I’ll look past the fact that this probably-pale woman is a little too fond of using the phrase “don’t mix” in this context, what I won’t look past is how wrong she objectively is. When a culture gets appropriated, that inherently has a level of inclusion baked in (even if only tangentially so). One cannot culturally appropriate and exclude that culture at the same time. Appropriating is literally the non-verbal act of saying “I want more of this, I want to include this”. So yes, men from The Community should absolutely start reaching out to their Indian neighbors (don’t bullshit, you know somebody from India) and invite them to the non-barbecue.
Lastly, Buddhists are another minority group that do not seem to be welcome inside the blanche-bro brand of American intermittent fasting. This is a shame because, much like Muslims and Hindus, Buddhists have the practice down-pat. The practice of Buddhist fasting is also common with certain life events in the community such as weddings and funerals; talk about dipping into some fat stores! The fact that average Rogan-ite hasn’t figured this out yet is a little bewildering, if I’m being honest.
The Community without DEI is nothing but empty calories…
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