During the COVID-19 pandemic, people started to put more focus on personal health problems, and people’s health consciousness has greatly improved. Exercising, choosing nutritious food and taking care of our mind and body is crucial to our wellbeing.

However, sometimes it seems absurd how little we know about the things we eat. Whether it’s complicated food labels or misleading marketing techniques, figuring out if we’re eating right can be tricky. In an attempt to help her 367K followers navigate this field, personal trainer Laura Ghiacy explained in one of her videos that when looking at the stone-cold facts, a McDonald’s cheeseburger is actually better for you than a protein cookie.

Scroll down to find her insights and make sure to share your thoughts in the comments!

Laura Ghiacy, a personal trainer who has 367.4K followers on TikTok, compares the nutritional value of a McDonald’s cheeseburger and a protein cookie

Laura Ghiacy is an experienced personal trainer with a broad background in fitness including nutrition, one-on-one training, group training and corporate training programs. The video she posted on TikTok was relevant to so many people that it went viral and received more than 18.3M views with 27.4K comments.

Bored Panda reached out to Laura and she was kind enough to answer a few of our questions. When asked about what her mission as a personal trainer is, Laura said she wants to ensure that anyone and everyone feels entitled to exercise because it can actually be enjoyable. The certified personal trainer does not focus on weight loss or physical changes but instead tries to cut through the Diet Culture nonsense. According to her, this system of beliefs claims that “thin = healthy and therefore thin = better… which is simply not true!“

“Health has no size and one’s health cannot be judged by the size of their body, but Diet Culture will have us believe that our health can be belittled down to a clothing size or worse, BMI, and that’s what I am trying to cut through,” Laura explained. “Take diets for example; 98% of all diets fail, yet there is a multi-billion dollar industry that is profiting from this making us feel shame over failing at a diet when it is the one thing that actually failed us.“

When food comes to mind, the fitness specialist expressed her ideas on food packaging and labels: “It has become very common for people to obsessively look at the back of food labels, count calories/macros,” she said. “Although it is common, it isn’t normal and can quickly escalate into disordered eating patterns.”

The fitness influencer listed the nutritional differences between these two foods before concluding that taste is the most important here

One thing that has contributed to food stigma skyrocketing is that the marketing around it has become very clever: “We think that because something says “high protein” that it is automatically “healthy” and therefore better, which is wrong.” And whilst Laura is keen for people to become savvy to the marketing and “smoke & mirrors” around foods, it would be irresponsible of her to promote scrutinizing food labels.

So misleading marketing techniques make it very difficult for consumers to figure out if the food is actually healthy. As Laura said, food marketing “wants us to part with our hard-earned money on products that we don’t actually need! Do we need a cookie with an abundance of protein? No. But are we made to think we do because protein is the “in-fashion” macronutrient and other macronutrients have been demonized and we’re made to feel shameful over what we eat? Absolutely.” And she is not OK with that.

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Image credits: lauraghiacy

Laura wishes to remove the shame around our bodies and what we consume. The number of comments under the video where people said “You’ve made me feel less guilty about eating a burger…” was astounding to her. “Guilt is not an ingredient in any food but we’re made to think we are “bad” for eating stigmatized foods,” she said, “We’re not. And if one video on TikTok can help someone feel a bit less shame… then that’s what I’m here for.”

@lauraghiacy IS A PROTEIN COOKIE HEALTHIER THAN A @McDonald’s CHEESEBURGER? #protein #cheeseburger #healthyeating #balance #fitnesstiktok ♬ original sound – Laura Ghiacy

Here are some of the reactions people had after watching the video

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