When I first caught wind of the Cyclospora outbreak, I felt a sense of tension—not because I feared illness, but rather because I anticipated the inevitable discussions about another uncomfortable topic: dieting.
Since the outbreak started last month, social media has exploded with posts from individuals claiming they want to get sick from cyclosporiasis to shed pounds this summer. TikTok and Instagram users who’ve fallen ill have shared before-and-after photos, attributing their weight loss to the infection. Others record themselves eating or purchasing pre-packaged salads, with captions like “Losing 10–20 pounds with a parasite sounds pretty appealing right now” or “I’m just one parasite away from my ideal weight.” Some might be joking, but the underlying message is concerning.
The fact that people are willing to risk a serious parasitic infection—one that leads to severe diarrhea, cramps, fatigue, and nausea—illustrates the dangerous beliefs promoted by diet culture: the idea that achieving a thin ideal is necessary, even at the cost of one’s health.
Rather than asking how to avoid getting cyclosporiasis, many seem to ask: Could this be a chance to slim down?
I remember thinking like this when I got sick. After losing my mom to cancer at 11, I developed anorexia and battled it for years. Whenever I had the flu or a stomach virus, I ate even less. But is it that bad? I thought. Society seemed to condone it.
When Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion was released in 1997 (the same year I developed my eating disorder), I heard Michele say how much weight Romy lost for prom: “I was so lucky getting mono,” Romy replied. “That was, like, the best diet ever.”
Then there was 2006, when Emily Blunt’s character in The Devil Wears Prada quipped, “I’m just one stomach flu away from my goal weight.” Fast forward to 2017, when Kim Kardashian tweeted, “The flu can be an amazing diet.” That year, Cosmopolitan even published a piece titled “How This Woman Lost 44 Pounds Without ANY Exercise,” about a woman who lost weight due to cancer, similar to my mother’s experience.
The notion that illness can be a shortcut to weight loss emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic as well. When I had the virus and lost my sense of taste and smell, I lacked motivation to eat. Despite years of recovering from my eating disorder, I slipped back into restricting food and had a brief relapse. I remember seeing friends on Facebook mourning their lost taste, yet finding solace in the thought, “At least I lost some weight!”
The irony in people seeking weight loss through cyclosporiasis is that such efforts are often pointless. “When someone experiences diarrhea, they’re mainly losing water, leading to a temporary drop in weight, not an actual loss of body fat,” Mara Gordon, a family physician, explained. “That weight will return as soon as you’re rehydrated. Dehydration is serious.”
Much of the “diarrhea diet” content might be intended humorously, but that’s part of the issue—by making light of the desire to get cyclosporiasis for weight loss, we risk harming individuals of all sizes.
“The messaging implies that being fat is worse than being ill. It also communicates to thin individuals that gaining weight is something to fear,” Rachel Millner, a clinical psychologist and fat activist, noted. “Diet culture, along with patriarchy and other societal pressures, suggests it’s more acceptable to risk health for thinness than to accept being fat. So Cyclospora becomes a means to approach that ideal.”
Having nearly lost my life to anorexia, I deeply relate to how we absorb harmful messages suggesting the key to happiness, desirability, and love lies in weight loss. While writing my memoir, I spoke to people in their 60s and 70s who spent decades chasing a lower number on the scale. I also talked to several younger individuals seeking help for eating disorders, only to be prescribed weight loss, which led some to even risk extreme behaviors to get the attention they felt they needed.
This is why I don’t feel anger but sadness when seeing creators attempting to make themselves ill by consuming Taco Bell’s shredded lettuce, connected to the outbreak. For instance, one TikTok featuring two women going to Taco Bell to get “#20poundslighter” has seen over 200,000 views. Another video shows a woman hurriedly preparing a salad to get cyclosporiasis, racking up over 3 million views. It’s tagged as satire, which blurs the line between humor and endorsement.
In a comparison, registered dietitian Shana Minei Spence mentioned those trying to get sick from cyclosporiasis mirror 1990s dieters who knowingly consumed chips containing Olestra (which causes diarrhea). “When diet culture is determined, it will find a way,” Spence shared. “This is why I emphasize that weight loss doesn’t equate to health. For too many, it’s not about health—it’s about being thin.”
It’s challenging to dismiss the obsession with thinness—especially with weight-loss medications and filters that can alter our appearance so easily. When this warped standard becomes the primary goal, it’s natural to seek content that reinforces that pursuit. The fact that many of us internalize such posts suggests it’s simpler to accept this ideal as “normal” than to push back against it.
However, we don’t have to comply. “Society wants us to agree or feel gaslit into thinking these messages aren’t significant,” Millner asserted. “Acknowledge that they’re harmful. Once you identify the harm, it becomes easier to disengage from the messaging.”
Years ago, I succumbed to diet culture, which felt like a nameless entity throughout my teenage years. Now I realize something I didn’t then: recognizing this force is empowering—it weakens its grip over us and, in turn, influences how we define our self-worth.
