Full Episode Transcript
Apologies for any transcription errors!
Matt: Welcome to Nutrition for Mortals, the podcast that says life is too damn short to spend your time and attention worrying about your food choices. So let's take a deep breath and then join us, two registered dietitians and friends as we explore the world of nutrition with a special focus on cultivating a healthy and peaceful relationship with food. My name is Matt Priven and I am joined as always by my co-host and the best dietician on planet Earth. Jen Baum. Hey Jen.
Jen: Hey Matt. And just a quick reminder, if you're enjoying the show, maybe consider telling a friend or leaving us a positive review wherever you listen to podcasts. And you can always email us show ideas at nutritionformortals@gmail.com because we love hearing from everyone.
Matt: Yes, we do.
Jen: So Matt, what are we talking about today?
Matt: Let's talk about Noom, shall we?
Jen: Noom, this one has been highly requested for us to talk about.
Matt: I know. I feel like everyone who makes a request for a topic also says, and then also do Noom, please talk about Noom. So this is probably our most requested topic, right?
Jen: I would think so. And Matt, I know you have done a ton of research into Noom, and so I'm going to very quickly test your Noom trivia. Do you know why it's named Noom?
Matt: No, I have no idea.
Jen: This is one of the only factoids I know about Noom is because it's moon spelled backwards.
Matt: Why is it moon spelled backwards?
Jen: I remember years and years ago hearing an interview with the founder of Noom, whose name I cannot remember. And he said that he named it Noom because it was moon spelled backwards and he wanted people to shoot for the moon with their health. And that is one of the reasons he named the app that.
Matt: Why is it Noom backwards though? It's just a kitschy way of saying moon. It's sneaking the word moon into his title.
Jen: Correct, yes. And that is, like I said, one of the only factoids that I know about Noom. So I'm very excited that you are going to be talking and educating me all about this app today.
Matt: I will absolutely do that. I'm so excited to talk about this.
Jen: So I feel like most people have probably heard of Noom. Their marketing is pretty aggressive. It is all over.
Matt: It's bananas.
Jen: It's bananas. It is all over social media, and I feel like I see ads on TV, and so it really is everywhere. But just in case people haven't heard of Noom, can you do a ultra quick 15 second synopsis of what Noom is?
Matt: It's a weight loss app for your phone basically. And yes, just to add on to your point, the marketing is so aggressive. They're on every podcast. They're all over terrestrial radio, they're on TV with commercials. They'll send direct mailers to your home. They might partner with your business that you work at as part of your workplace wellness program. Even my credit card company tries to get me to use Noom, so it's pretty out of control. So the short elevator pitch for Noom, it's a weight loss app for your phone, and it's one that's gotten a lot of attention over the years. They position themselves as a wellness program, not a diet, and they say that they use psychology to help folks lose weight, but they also say that they help you build a healthy relationship with food. So of course we have to weigh in on that.
Jen: Absolutely. So kind of like two parts. They're definitely weight loss focus, but it sounds like they also take this very psychology heavy approach to health and wellness.
Matt: Totally. And so a little background, if you're interested. So started in 2008 by two guys, Artem Petakov and Saeju Jeong, and a little background on them. Petakov was a software engineer at Google before starting Noom, and Jeong is a lifelong entrepreneur, so they're not healthcare background guys. They're business guys. And they started in 2008, like I said. The original concept was actually a smart bike, like a Peloton kind of thing. And then they got into the app game later on, and originally it was a fitness tracking app. And then finally they landed on weight loss as their goal in 2012. And since then they focused on this product, this Noom weight loss support system that we're going to talk about today. I will mention as of May of this year, they launched Noom Med, which is selling weight loss medication online. So that's probably going to be what people start to hear about more and more, but we're talking about the Noom that people know, the weight loss app for your phone today.
Jen: So how are we going to structure our conversation today? Because I feel like there's a lot of ways we could approach the Noom topic, but how are we going to structure our conversation?
Matt: So we're going to focus on that question of does Noom help people build healthy relationships with food? That's what we're all about here at Nutrition for Mortals. And so if Noom is saying that they're helping folks with that, let's take a look. And so that's going to be our big question. And in getting ready to talk about this, I realized I couldn't give my thoughts unless I had a very intimate knowledge of Noom. So for the past two weeks, I've been using Noom.
Jen: You have not.
Matt: I have been using the app. Every day I logged my breakfast before sitting down to talk to you this morning. They've done their psychology on me. I've been psychologized. So the structure of our chat is going to be me telling you about my experience using Noom mostly.
Jen: I feel like this is very similar to when you went undercover during our food sensitivity test episode. Remember you tried to infiltrate the German company that made the machine that measures food vibes. You're going undercover again.
Matt: I'm back undercover. I'm back. And just in case people think, "Oh my God, am I about to hear that Matt did a restrictive diet?" No, no, it's not that type of show. I didn't restrict my eating in any way. I didn't weigh myself at all. You're not going to hear about that. But there were a lot of ways I was able to use the app to learn more about the experience of the average user. And now that we're having this conversation, I am deleting the app for all eternity. In fact, maybe I'll do that right now on air.
Jen: So it sounds like the general vibe I'm getting from you is that you were not crazy about your Noom experience.
Matt: No, absolutely. Deleting this app will also delete its data. Yes, totally. Noom gone. I am going to reveal right off the bat here, won't bury their lead. I dislike a lot of things about Noom. So mostly this episode is about those things.
Jen: Well, I can't wait to hear about your experience and your takeaways from engaging with this app for a couple of weeks. But first, I mean, Noom is a really popular product, and I imagine that there are lots of people who really like Noom and credit it with being really helpful for them. And so can we address these folks first before maybe we start digging into some of the aspects of Noom that you weren't crazy about or I'm not crazy about?
Matt: Totally. I do. I'm so glad you said that. I want to acknowledge that there are a lot of people who like Noom a lot. They're out there. I don't know them personally. Do you know them personally?
Jen: I don't know them personally.
Matt: So we don't know them personally, but the internet would have me believe that they're out there. So if that's you, I just want to say I think it's great. Honestly, if you feel like this process of using Noom that I'm about to describe feels healthy for you. And when it comes to having a healthy relationship with food, only you can decide what that means for you. So I'm just going to share my thoughts. And remember, I work every day with folks who struggle with disordered eating and eating disorders. So I have a frame of reference here that may be different than yours, but if you love Noom, you might want to turn this one-off.
Jen: That's a good disclaimer for this episode. Can you take me through the process of signing up for Noom and what that process looked like and then the product or the plan that they were trying to sell you? Because now I'm super intrigued that you actually went through this whole process of becoming a Noomer. Can I call you a Noomer?
Matt: A Noomerologist? Yes. I will definitely take you through the process. So the whole process starts with the question, what is your weight loss goal? And that is quickly followed by the question, what is your ideal weight that you want to reach? So kind of the same question asked twice. You just pick how much weight you want to lose, and that's how you jump into the Noom process. And so for the purposes of science, I picked the lowest weight possible to see if there were any safeguards in their system, see what they're willing to support folks in. And the answer is they'll support you in trying to reach any weight as long as it's not considered an underweight body mass index. So the weight goal I landed on, I'll spare you the numbers here, but it's the very cusp of being underweight for my height based on BMI because it's not technically underweight. Noom says, "Great, we're excited to help you hit your goals. Based on your plan. You'll be approaching underweight by May 8th." So they actually put a date on it for you, and then they ask you to commit by hitting a big button that says, "I commit."
Jen: Sounds like they're all but guaranteeing weight loss by a certain period of time. It sounds like they're giving you a timeframe. They're like, this is going to happen. There's some pretty heavy promises and claims happening here.
Matt: Totally. Then they ask you a ton of questions, and after a while we finally get to a payment screen, but not before they ask me, how confident are you in reaching your goal weight by May 8th? And I select a big button that says, "I believe I can do it." And then that's when you really jump into it.
Jen: Gotcha. Gotcha. Then tell me about the payment structure. How much does this cost? Did you get a free trial? I'm really curious because at least anecdotally I've heard from clients I've worked with that Noom can get really pricey. So how much did you have to pay for this experience?
Matt: So I did sort of an extended free trial for two weeks, but it is really costly if you are paying for it. So it's $70 a month for the baseline product, and if you want other features, you're paying more. So if you want the personal coaching that most people think of with Noom, it's $150 more per month, so quite a bit.
Jen: So $150 on top of the $70 base fee?
Matt: And they have different pricing structures based on how long of a time you sign up for, but if it's month to month, it's 70 bucks a month for just the basic product.
Jen: So you have to have a decent amount of money to be able to engage with this app.
Matt: Yes. Or your employer needs to subsidize it for you or something like that.
Jen: Gotcha. So at this point you, you're signed up, your're committed to your goals through the beginning of May, you're using the app. So I want to know what's it like? What's the program? Give me an overview.
Matt: I don't know what I expected here, but it is so underwhelming once you're finally into this app and you have it and you're looking at it. I don't know, even for me, somebody who was not psyched to use this, something about their marketing and how slick it is, just made me think I was in for an experience I haven't seen before, but it's not. One of the first screens you encounter says. "The three things you should do consistently and on as many days as possible are, one, weighing yourself, two, logging your meals, three, completing your daily Noom lessons." So right off the bat, it's like, so this is just an app that's going to make me log my meals and weigh myself. Right?
Jen: And tell me about the lessons. What are the lessons you're talking about?
Matt: The lessons are all over the map in terms of what topics they cover, but they generally have to deal with the psychology of weight loss and kind of priming you to commit to the program and to approach some of their expectations around weighing or food logging in a way that doesn't upset you. They're really trying to lull you into a sense of security with a lot of these lessons. We'll get into more of the specifics later, but I'll just introduce you to some of the basic foundational aspects of using Noom. So I just want to comment on the food logging system that they have here. So they didn't reinvent the wheel with this one. If anyone has used MyFitnessPal before and they can relate to the infuriating process of trying to enter literally any cooked meal accurately into the system, it's the same maddening process. It essentially pushes you to start weighing and measuring all your food or accept that your calorie information is completely inaccurate. You know what I mean?
Jen: For sure.
Matt: And you quickly learn that Noom uses that modified traffic light system for categorizing different foods. Are you familiar with that?
Jen: Yes, I do know that they do this, but why don't you give us a brief description.
Matt: So some foods are green, some foods are yellow, and some foods are, say it with me. Orange.
Jen: Orange.
Matt: You knew. I thought you were going to say red. Yes, of course. Orange, not red because...
Soundboard: Psychology.
Jen: Right, we don't want to use scary red color.
Matt: It's a pretty reddish orange, to be honest with you. But yes, they've committed to green, yellow, and orange. And green is low calorie foods, yellow is for slightly higher calorie foods, and orange is for even higher calorie foods. And they just encourage you to eat more green foods. And if you eat too many orange foods, you get a little hazard icon and it shows how many calories of orange foods you went over your recommended goal.
Jen: Gotcha, gotcha. At least from what you've told me so far, this doesn't sound like that much different from other diet apps, diet books, diet plans. I know we're going to talk a little bit about the psychology piece later, but so far I'm not hearing anything that's feeling very revolutionary.
Matt: Absolutely. That's exactly how I felt going into the process. And again, they want you to weigh yourself as often as possible, ideally daily, and log your weight consistently.
Jen: Well, can we talk about that for a minute? This idea of self weighing, because I'm really curious to know why Noom encourages people to self weigh. I mean, for an app that essentially prides themselves on being psychology driven, how do they handle this recommendation to step on the scale every day and log your weight as something that's supposedly helpful and necessary?
Matt: So Noom does this in a kind of interesting way, it wasn't super expecting. So one of the first Noom lessons you get is about the psychology of using the bathroom scale. And they talk about some of the stuff that we talked about in our episode titled Weighing in On Bathroom Scales. And they talk about how it's normal to have an emotional connection to the number on the scale. They talk a little bit about the emotions that can be brought up by weighing ourselves. But then they pivot and they say, self weighing is necessary and important. In order to do this process of Noom correctly, you really have to weigh yourself consistently. And they try to make the case that this is exposure therapy and that you will grow more comfortable with using the scale over time. They just keep saying, step on the scale, log your weight, everything will get better. And there was even a point where I had to take a quiz, and one of the questions was weighing yourself daily? A, decreases scale anxiety, B, increases scale anxiety, or C, does not affect scale anxiety. And I selected B, increases scale anxiety. And they said, sorry, the answer is it decreases scale anxiety, which has a very Jedi mind tricks. The droids are looking for a feel to it, just hypnotizing me into submission.
Jen: Right, right. They're like incorrect. Sorry, go back and try again.
Matt: And so that's how Noom approaches it.
Jen: All right, we need to talk about this a little bit because yes, we have had past episodes on this topic specifically. And so what do we think about Noom's claim that more frequent self weighing reduces scale anxiety?
Matt: It's wrong. It's not right.
Jen: It's not right.
Matt: It's incorrect. I mean, the research we have does not support this idea at all. We do have some research into self weighing and outcomes around mental and emotional health. And I'll just mention a little bit of the research here. So one of the most comprehensive studies we have is from 2012 in the Journal of Adolescent Health by Quick et al., and they looked at the self weighing behaviors and outcomes for over 2200 individuals. Even though it's a journal for adolescent health, the mean age was 25 years old. And actually I'll have you read from their findings here, if you will.
Jen: Sure. It says, "More frequent self weighing was found to be associated with lower self-esteem and more depressive symptoms among women in analyses that adjusted for BMI and sociodemographic characteristics. Among young adult men, frequency of self weighing was inversely associated with body satisfaction."
Matt: And with respect to anxiety specifically, since that's what Noom was talking about, we do have a small study from 1997 in the European Eating Disorder Review by Ogden et al, where, again, small study. 30 women who did not have eating disorders weighed themselves every day, and then their anxiety was assessed and they found that this daily weighing protocol "showed a deterioration in mood in terms of increases in both anxiety and depression and lowered self-esteem." And so their conclusion was "the results from the present study suggest that weighing may not be as benign a practice as often assumed resulting in a deterioration in individual's psychological state."
Jen: And I'll be really honest here, is that these research studies kind of echo what I see in practice and probably what you see in practice more often, Matt, which is that most of the folks that I work with who are weighing themselves, they're not loving the experience of stepping on the scale. This is not a fun and enjoyable process for them. And it can be something that can be very anxiety and emotion provoking. I mean, I feel like the research speaks a lot more to what we see in practice generally as well.
Matt: Yes, totally agree.
Jen: All right, well, so now I kind of understand more specifically what Noom is providing, but I just want to hear your thoughts as you engage with Noom day to day, what stood out to you?
Matt: Man, I spent so much time thinking about what I wanted to bring to you to talk about today and complain about. And I narrowed it down to five things. I had 80 things and I brought it down to five things. So we'll kind of go through the five points. So the first one I want to talk about is the traffic light system of eating sucks so bad.
Jen: Tell us how you really feel though, Matt.
Matt: They bend over backwards to try to explain how this isn't categorizing foods as good or bad. No, right. It definitely is not making good or bad foods, it's just using a traffic light system. One that's too scared to use the color red. But for a company that prides themselves on understanding, again...
Soundboard: Psychology.
Matt: I mean, come on. At one point they literally say orange doesn't mean bad, and green doesn't mean good, though it does mean better.
Jen: So it's like semantics at that point.
Matt: So it's better, but it's not good. It's just better. So orange foods are not bad, they're just worse. And at the end of the day, their food recommendations are just classic diet eating practices so much of the time. They recommended that I eat a bunch of boring diet foods, like having low fat yogurt as dessert or doing lettuce wraps instead of sandwiches because bread is an orange food or have spaghetti squash instead of spaghetti. They call eating berries having fruit candy.
Jen: What? No, that's not candy. Candy is candy.
Matt: Candy is candy. So my number one point is I dislike the traffic light system very much so. What are your thoughts on that?
Jen: I mean we've talked a lot about just kind of how detrimental it can be to do any type of food categorization, and this doesn't really even sound all that novel to me quite honestly. I'm actually curious to know when you entered your meals because I know that's part of what you did, did they actually rate your meals according to this traffic light system? Were they like, "Oh, you had too many orange foods or a great job on having more green foods." Was there a feedback immediately when you entered your meals?
Matt: You get an analysis for your day immediately, and that sort of populates as you enter new foods. And so as soon as you go over your small allotment of orange foods, which again, orange is just high calorie, so it includes a wide variety of foods including all nuts and seeds and olive oil. If you go over your allotment of orange foods, immediately you get a little hazard icon and you've hit your limit for the day.
Jen: Right, right. And I think the other problem is that when you have an oversimplified system like this, you have foods like nuts and seeds that are being put in the supposed off limits or have sparingly category, but we know that these foods have lots of health benefits. We know that people who eat nuts with frequency, there are health benefits and cardiovascular benefits and things like that. And so the other thing I think that this type of categorization does is somehow make people stay away from foods that have some real health benefits and impart some real health benefits.
Matt: Absolutely. Or foods that just make you feel full and satisfied, right? When you push people towards lower calorie foods, often you're pushing people away from dietary fat, which is where all flavor and satisfaction and the caloric density of higher calorie foods is what often makes us feel full and satisfied. And you don't give that to people when you tell them that they've hit their limit of orange foods. But Noom is walking this annoying line of trying to tell you how to eat while also trying to lull you into like, "It's okay. It's okay." And so it's a very weird ecosystem to spend your time.
Jen: It sounds like it. So that was point number one in terms of things that you didn't love about the program. What's number two?
Matt: Well, I was maybe even touching on it there a little bit. So number two is the constant contradictory and confusing messaging. So I'll read a quote that really stood out to me. So they said, "You can be doing all of the right things, eating your veggies, drinking lots of water, clocking in eight hours of sleep, and still not see progress on the scale. Why? There's hundreds of factors that impact your weight loss, many of which are out of your control, hormones, muscle mass, and genetics. We're looking at you. It can be frustrating, but we also know something else to be true. It only takes doing three things consistently to guarantee you'll lose weight with Noom. One, weighing yourself. Two, logging your meals. Three, completing your daily Noom lessons."
Jen: Can I tell you why this really bothers me? I'm totally going to cut you off. I'm going to tell you why.
Matt: Please.
Jen: This really bothers me because they essentially touch on some very, very important factors that can impact body shape and size like genetics, and then they just toss them out. They're like, but don't worry about those things because just log your meals and weigh yourself and complete your daily Noom lessons and you're all good. It's like, wait a second. You just touched on some very, very important things and then ignored them.
Matt: That's exactly my point. That's all I wanted to say about this is it's so contradictory and it's so many points in the process. Noom tries to thread this needle where they can keep making all the promises of traditional restrictive diet programs, while also asking me to believe that they know what they're talking about, that they have evidence-based support for my best interests. It just leaves so many folks confused and it reads as really insincere a lot of the time.
Jen: Well, I can also imagine it could leave folks feeling really bad about themselves too. If they are weighing themselves and logging their meals and completing the daily Noom lessons and then their body is not changing as promised by Noom, I think there could be a real tendency to be like, what's wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? And the truth is nothing is wrong with them. It's the oversimplification of weight and health and weight loss and all of those things. But that's not what they're being told. And I can see the potential for lots of people feeling really bad about themselves if they're doing all the things Noom tells them to do, but they're not seeing what Noom promises.
Matt: Exactly.
Jen: So messaging not great. What else did you not love about it?
Matt: Number three, the co-opting of intuitive eating language. It's everywhere in this app. They straight up lift intuitive eating language left and right. You and I, we're passionate about intuitive eating. I'm a certified intuitive eating counselor. I love intuitive eating and the way that they use the language of intuitive eating is a real problem for me. There was a whole module I had to do about how to build a healthy relationship with food, and they talk about granting yourself permission to eat all foods, to enjoy all foods without feelings of guilt or shame. To honor your body's feedback. I mean, we love this stuff.
Jen: This all sounds great.
Matt: But this is a weight loss application for your phone that provides a daily calorie goal and admonishes you for overeating almonds. This is a program that is trying to help me lose 30% of my body weight over the next nine months, and I'm a certified intuitive eating counselor. The weight loss goal is the wrench in the works here. If you are using Noom to lose weight after a lifetime of weight discrimination, both external, internal, and now you're being told by your phone not to feel shame or don't let yourself go hungry while you're trying to stick to a 1200 calorie a day meal plan. Or grant yourself permission to eat all foods, even the orange foods that throw up a hazard warning in your food logs. Come on. It's so contradictory. And there's no place for intuitive eating language here. I really detest it.
Jen: Well, I was just thinking that same thing too. I like how they said, enjoy all foods without feelings of guilt or shame, and then instantly throw up a large hazard symbol if you eat too many orange foods and then you're not supposed to feel shame. Well, how's that work exactly?
Matt: Just don't feel shame. Just stop it. Stop shame.
Jen: Say no to shame Matt. Say no to shame.
Matt: What would Brene Brown have to say about this?
Jen: Right, right, right. I think that is really unfortunate because you and I really work under the umbrella or through the lens of intuitive eating. And so to have that language kind of taken and twisted and applied to what is really essentially a very kind of traditional low cal diet, that just feels really unfortunate and I don't love the way that feels.
Matt: Me too. Well, something else you're not going to love is number four, the humor. The humor of the Noom app is on my list. Of all the things I kept to this one because man, it really feels like I'm ranting in this episode, and I apologize for my tone here everybody, but I don't know another way to talk about this stuff. There's a certain type of humor that Noom uses that they're trying to lighten the mood, I think. But every time they make a joke, it just belies the fact that they don't care about your relationship with food or that they don't have an understanding of what a healthy relationship with food might look like. And so examples of this, when they encourage you to weigh yourself, they say, "Mark it on your calendar. Set a phone reminder or rig a contraption that throws a pie in your face if you don't weigh in every day." That's their hysterical joke. I mean reading that as somebody who's done many diet plans over the years and been weighed in at Weight Watchers and now they're trying Noom, this new plan. And the joke is, I'm going to get hit with a pie if I don't log my weight every day. It makes my skin crawl to see these jokes. You know what I mean?
Jen: And I also think getting on the scale can be really hard for some folks too. And there's an aspect of this that makes it feel like they're making light of it a little bit. Like you should just be able to do it or just figure out a way to do it, or it's not that hard. It maybe takes away or distracts from the fact that some people might have a really complex history with food. Some people might have been raised with food in a way that may have been pretty traumatic, and making light like this and just trying to make it light and breezy doesn't feel necessarily like the right choice all the time.
Matt: Absolutely. And they show you these memes that are supposed to also lighten the mood, but again, they're not reading the room at all. So one example is, the first one I saw was a picture of a guy crossing his arms and looking mad. And it says, "There should be a calorie refund for things that didn't taste as good as you expected." And to speak to your point below the image, there's text that says, "Why memes? Sometimes the best thing for your health is a quick laugh. Releasing the stress and anxiety that can come with a weight loss journey is good for your body and your mind." So they try to explain away using this psychology approach for something that shouldn't be explained away. That's just not funny at all.
Jen: Right. And you know what else is good for your stress and your health, not dieting. That's also great for your stress and health.
Matt: Amen. There's some...
Soundboard: Psychology.
Jen: I just dropped some psychology on you, Matt.
Matt: So the humor, we don't have to linger on the humor, but it just bothered me.
Jen: So now we're to number five. What's number five?
Matt: Number five, kind of a big one. Recommendations that are invitations for disordered eating for many who use the app. I'm sure a lot of people were expecting some commentary on the relationship between disordered eating and eating disorders and weight loss programs like Noom. So let's talk about it. So often the line gets quite blurry between Noom's recommendations and the kinds of behaviors and thought processes associated with disordered eating or eating disorders. So I'll just give you an example. Noom says, "Imagine two meals. A quarter pounder cheeseburger and a quarter pound of arugula. While they weigh the same, the burger has 14 times the calories. If you eat the much lower calorie arugula, you could be just as full as if you ate the burger." So Jen, what are your thoughts on that?
Jen: I have to take a deep breath on this one. This to me is a pretty volumetrics approach to food. And what I mean by that is very often in restrictive diet plans, very often for someone who's actively engaged in disordered eating or an eating disorder, they will very much try to fill up their stomachs with ultra low calorie foods, things like greens or cucumbers or baby carrots or things like that in the hopes that they're going to get a false sense of fullness. But what I don't like at the end of this quote is when they say you could be just as full as if you ate the burger, that's actually not true. You're almost tricking your stomach in this case to feel full for a while. It doesn't mean that you got an adequate amount of nutrients. So this is very misleading, and this is actually what I would categorize as a disordered behavior.
Matt: Yes, exactly. And also the language around physical activity gets kind of murky. So Noom will encourage you to pace around your room to get more steps in or climb your stairs during commercial breaks while watching TV. And then out of the other side of their mouth, they recommend that you find joyful movement that fits into your life. But for many who struggle with their relationship with food, with movement, with their body, this is all very confusing and problematic.
Jen: Again, those are behaviors that I would say can often walk a line between movement but also disordered exercise. If you're pacing around the room because you're trying to hit a step goal, that doesn't feel very joyful to me or probably to most people at all.
Matt: Absolutely. Can you say room again for everybody so they know you're from Maine?
Jen: Room. Do I have an accent when I say it?
Matt: You do, you say rum. You get a little bit of that Maine in you.
Jen: Room.
Matt: So sorry to take us off our very serious topic to make fun of your voice. So what I want to talk about for a sec is the fact that we're not just hypothesizing here. There has been quite a bit of conversation about the relationship between Noom and the potential for eating disorders. So I want to just mention a piece that was written last year, 2022 in Business Insider in which they interviewed a person who worked as a Noom coach after graduating college. And Jen, I'll just have you read this quote here.
Jen: Sure. It says, "When she started in 2018, she appreciated Noom's energetic and flexible work culture and felt she could do some good, but soon her coaching job felt more akin to a therapist, trauma counselor or nutritionist. She worried she might be doing more harm than good. A majority of my conversations would be with people clearly in a very unhealthy relationship with food and their bodies, she said. Three years after starting at Noom, she took another job and left. She and several former coaches told Insider they pursued a career in nutrition counseling because they had previously dealt with disordered eating themselves. In addition to feeling that she was falling short as a coach, she said she was increasingly triggered by her own issues with food and dieting."
Matt: So this is from the perspective of a coach who saw a lot of unhealthy relationships with food and with people's bodies in the chats that she was having with them. And similarly, we have accounts of lots of people who have used app as a user trying to lose weight. And so we'll read one more thing. Jen, do you mind reading another thing for me?
Jen: I love reading.
Matt: You're great at it. Will you narrate my audiobook someday?
Jen: I will. I promise.
Matt: This is from a 2021 article in Cosmopolitan titled, "Noom lured me in with its Wellness hype and wrecked my relationship with food." So I will have you read right here, por favor.
Jen: "On the surface, the app's daily lessons seemed like the fundamentals of intuitive eating. Ultimately though it was more like gaslighting my gastrointestinal system and warping my thoughts about what constituted a healthy habit. For instance, daily weigh-ins were encouraged. The idea being that I would get accustomed to and therefore not freaked out by natural fluctuations in the number, while also charting my progress. In practice, it quickly turned into an obsession. I started panicking when I couldn't weigh myself. So much so that when I went out of town for a work trip, the first thing that I did after landing was by a scale, not once, but twice. It's been more than a year since I deleted the app, a decision that wasn't spurred by a singular aha moment, more like an ever sharpening awareness that something wasn't right. I've come so far from that young girl who used food to comfort herself, and yet upon reflection, the speed at which I lost myself all over again while I was using Noom is dizzying." Wow. That's a powerful quote. Well, you know what I like about both of those quotes? I mean, it kind of speaks to the user, but also the coaches, right? I mean, we haven't really talked a lot about the coaches who are engaging with people. You mentioned at the beginning that people can pay extra to have private or one-on-one coaching or a chat feature. And so I think that first quote really speaks to the fact that... Sounds like a lot of these health coaches felt really out of their depth. And I think that's really understandable. I mean, you and I work all the time with people who have suffered trauma, people who have eating disorders. It's really challenging work, and you and I are learning and taking classes all the time to be able to do the work that we do and we still need to learn. And so I think that the first quote particularly speaks to the challenges that the coaches felt, and it sounds like some of them felt really overwhelmed.
Matt: You kind of feel bad for everyone involved. Some people using the app again, they like it. They feel like it's beneficial for their health. Some people though, and they're not looking for my sympathy. But a lot of people don't have their relationship with food made better using this, and a lot of coaches have to navigate that and try to support people, oftentimes they're not trained to do so. And even if they were, I'm not so sure that this ecosystem could support the type of care that these folks need.
Jen: And so as we're kind of wrapping up here, any other high level thoughts around Noom or the process of using Noom or just how Noom impacts someone's relationship with food potentially?
Matt: Do I think Noom is trying to intentionally harm people? Absolutely not. I think two guys wanted to make a lot of money, and they're very good at marketing. They were very successful. I would even wager that they really believe when they put their head on their pillow at night that they're helping. And I get it. I get it. They can find a lot of users who confirm that for them. But like so many weight loss programs over the years, it's just so tone-deaf as to the culture we actually live in. And it just willingly ignores the stories that people bring to these experiences. If somebody from a young age was told to lose weight or was shamed for their weight or just existed in modern culture, understanding how we talk about fat people. They're going to have a lot of information that makes the psychology of Noom just really eye roll-y and sometimes harmful. And so it's going to fundamentally affect the experience of users of this product who chooses to use it, and how they interpret what's being recommended. There's not a lot of acknowledgement of that. And I guess that's the point I want to make. What about you? You got anything to add here?
Jen: I mean, I kind of said this earlier, but I would say that Noom is very well marketed and cleverly packaged, and it's just a low calorie diet. That's all it is. And so I would just say that I don't know about you, Matt, I just get exhausted just seeing the ways that diets are repackaged and repackaged and repackaged. I just feel like I just want to put it out there into people's consciousness that I know people can dress it up differently, and they can throw in words like psychology, and they can throw in coaches that are supposed to help you and things like that. But the truth is that this is nothing more than a diet. And I will go back to what I said in an earlier episode, which is that we know that diets don't work for most people long term. And so with something like Noom, I would say it has maybe more of a potential, like you said earlier, Matt. To maybe be detrimental or at least mess with someone's relationship with food. And so I would just say kind of buyer beware.
Matt: Well said. So I think I can come up with a way for us to go out on a more upbeat note if I may. So Jen, can I have you read a passage, please, from a book that you and I love very much by the incomparable Aubrey Gordon?
Jen: I love her.
Matt: In her book called What We Don't Talk About When We Talk about Fat. And I will have you read this because I think it is uplifting and promising of where we're trying to go in the future when it comes to these conversations. So please read for me.
Jen: I will. And I will just say someday maybe Aubrey will be on the show. That's my hope. That's the dream right there.
Matt: I'm nervous just hearing you say that, but okay, let's do it.
Jen: All right. Here's a quote from the wonderful Aubrey Gordon. She says, "There is a world beyond this one. In that world, diversity in size and shape are understood to be part of the natural variance of human bodies from very fat people to very thin ones, so too are fluctuations in weight. We do not wring our hands or punish ourselves for 1, 5, 10 pounds change in weight. Sudden, dramatic weight loss or gain is caused for concern only because of what underlying conditions they may point to, not because weight itself is stigmatized. Bathroom scales are now largely specialized. A piece of medical equipment used temporarily or infrequently for endocrine disorders or heart conditions linked to sudden and significant changes in weight. Diet talk is a thing of the past, understood to be a troubling and harmful trigger for people with eating disorders and fat people alike. Replaced instead by grounded emotional reflections on the ways our bodies change like the seasons. The weight loss industry is widely written off as a scam. Some perplexing, sepia toned relic of times gone by."
Matt: I don't know what to add to that. Thank you, Aubrey.
Jen: What an awesome way to end the show. I'll see you Matt.
Matt: See you, Jen.
Nutrition for Mortals is a production of Oceanside Nutrition, a real life nutrition counseling practice in beautiful Newburyport, Massachusetts, where we provide individual nutrition counseling, both in person and online via telehealth. Feel free to learn more about our practice at oceansidenutrition.com. If you want to send in a show idea, you can email us at nutritionformortals@gmail.com. We're on Instagram at Nutrition for Mortals. If you're digging the show, tell a friend. Maybe give us a nice review on Apple Podcasts if you can. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
Jen: Hey, Matt, do you know what desserts spelled backwards is?
Matt: Stressed?
Jen: Which is exactly what I think people will be if they use Noom.
Matt: Boo.
