The Problem with Cassey Ho’s Blogilates "Banana Test"
By: Shannon Ashley
Tags: Social Media, Food, Lifestyle, Mental Health, Weight Loss

One of the worst things to come out of diet culture is our confusion about hunger cues. The first time I talked to my dietician about hunger, I told her how I was always second-guessing myself when I felt hungry, possibly because every diet has told me I don’t know the difference between genuine hunger and mere food cravings. She knew exactly what I was talking about because she sees this all of the time in her new clients.

At 38 years old, I am now relearning what hunger feels like. I’m learning how to listen to — and trust! — my body instead of making myself jump through hoops or get over arbitrary hurdles just to prove that my hunger is real.

Over the years, I’ve read hundreds of diet or “nutrition” books and I’ve tried countless diets guaranteed to help me lose weight and keep it off for good. Yet each one offered loaded messages about when it’s “okay” to eat.

Some diets say you can only eat your meals at set times. Others use an eating window. Many diets give you an eating curfew to help conquer evening snacking.

But what happens when you experience hunger outside of those prescribed times? Well, typical diet culture says you must not actually be hungry. Maybe you did something wrong because people who follow the diet correctly seem to banish their hunger. Perhaps your body is just playing tricks on you. Whatever happened, you’re encouraged to “beat” your hunger.

As if it’s your enemy.

Such so-called “healthy” weight loss diets don’t let you eat when you’re hungry if you happen to be hungry at the “wrong” time. Which means you get used to subduing and ignoring your body’s hunger signals.

Does that sound like a healthy relationship to you?

Other diets and “healthy eating plans” care less about when you eat, but they do micromanage what you eat. Some restrict entire food groups, like carbohydrates, or place food into categories like “good,” “bad,” “green light,” “red light,” and “yellow light.”

These sorts of diets come up with all sorts of other rules about hunger. Sometimes, that means counting calories. On a typical 1,200 calorie diet, you might get three 300 calorie meals and two 150 calorie snacks. If you wind up feeling hungrier, and you aren’t satisfied by those meals or snacks, you’re encouraged to wait it out.

Usually, such diets put certain foods off-limits, or at least, limit their portion sizes to help mitigate the “damage.” One common suggestion you’ll hear is to eat more “virtuous” foods like raw fruits and veggies, or to nosh on egg whites, since these have more volume and can “fill you up” on fewer calories. It’s the same mentality that says to eat cauliflower instead of pasta or potatoes, and lettuce wraps instead of bread.

If you find yourself unsatisfied by those virtuous swaps, the logic goes that you were never really hungry in the first place. That it’s emotional and in your head.

After all, a hungry person would eat anything. Right? Well, actually, no.

This brings me over to Cassey Ho’s banana test. Cassey is a wildly popular fitness and healthy living influencer with a large following on social media.

Ho is a pilates instructor, but it’s worth mentioning that she is not a dietician or expert in nutrition. Back in May, she posted a Tik Tok video introducing something she calls the banana test.

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