There is a section at the end of this blog post about their recent Tumblr drama, but the focus on this blog post is on the question health advice, as well as mental health. Okay, so let’s get right into this. They both have a superiority complex – and I have one as well. I don’t think that is a bad thing – in fact for me it’s been most helpful over the years. I’ll explain why in a moment, but let’s start with the premise that health is not just about physical health, but also psychological well-being, as well as spiritual well-being, and even community well-being. Earlier this week, new parliamentarian Julian Leeser devoted his maiden speech to talking about depression. Most people know what it is like to go through depression at some point, but it can affect people in disproportionate ways. And it can be very difficult to seek help for. When I went through a period of this myself as a young adult, I tackled it completely alone. And so one day I decided that I needed to help myself – if I’m not going to reach out for help, then I need to step up and provide a solution. And that’s what I did, and it was very successful for me. What I decided was that I didn’t give a fuck what anyone else thought about me, I would love myself unconditionally. So that’s why I have a superiority complex.

What I don’t allow it to do is guide my belief-set. It has taken a very long time to free myself from preconceived beliefs. And I believe the reason I have been successful with this is because I am quite receptive to receiving and considering information, even when it gets overwhelming. Health, unfortunately, is one of these areas where people have a lot of preconceived ideas, and everyone thinks they’re an expert. Not only that, but then they join the “evil” diet industry and are oblivious to the fact they’re a part of it. It wouldn’t bother me so much if when we showed people like this evidence they looked at it and said “that’s interesting, let me have a very good look at this and come to a fresh conclusion”. Diet is a very fast growing area of study, and things we used to believe about cholesterol and saturated fats have turned out to be wrong. If you don’t know exactly what I mean by this do not worry I will explain it in the future.

Much of the stuff that Leanne “Freelee” Ratcliffe and Harley “Durianrider” Johnstone have said regarding health is based on incorrect assumptions, and knowledge drawn from questionable sources. For example in 2014 Leanne said that Chemotherapy “killed” 13-year old cancer patient Talia Joy. Now it’s certainly true that chemotherapy is dangerous, and can result in patient death. This actually happened to someone I know recently. However, doctors do not prescribe the treatment unless the potential benefit outweighs the risk. That is to say, if you have a terminal illness like cancer then the prospect of dying a little sooner due to a negative reaction to treatment is outweighed by the potential to go on and live a long healthy life if the treatment is successful. So it’s not accurate to say that chemo killed the patient, when in fact it was cancer that was the main culprit.

In the video Leanne made, she claims that a raw vegan diet could have cured the girl’s cancer. As evidence she uses a testimonial from a man claiming that he overcame colon cancer by switching his diet. But Belle Gibson made the same claim and we now know it was a complete fraud. But even if the anecdotal case is true, it is still just evidence of a correlation and not causation. And that is a very important distinction to make. She also incorrectly claims that the health industry has a monopoly – the truth is that it is very difficult to research alternative cancer treatments because you cannot prevent patients from having surgery and/or chemotherapy as a part of the treatment for the purpose of research. What you can do is anything that will not prevent them from having those treatments, so if you wanted to do a large randomised controlled trial where people were given different diets – let’s say DASH, and Vegan, and Control – you could do that, you would get ethics approval. In her criticisms of chemo she does not cite anything peer-review or even from respected experts in the field.

My heart sank when I saw the video Leanne made about Eugenia Cooney. Eugenia suffers from some form of eating disorder, and is clearly quite underweight. I used to think that Freelee’s advice was based on a misunderstanding about nutrition, but I now can confirm it’s based on a lie. Eugenia suffers from a mental disease, not a diet-related-illness. Her poor diet is a symptom, not the cause, of her illness. Leanne’s video is completely misinformed about this, and in particular she makes comments about Eugenia’s body which are counter-productive. When a person is suffering from an eating disorder it means they also suffer from body dysmorphia. Criticising her body will only reinforce the beliefs that Eugenia has about her body. Asking Eugenia to go vegan is very inappropriate because it’s the exact opposite of what her therapist would be trying to do, which is to let her know that foods are safe, and that she can be less obsessive about her diet without it adversely affecting her. Also, therapists will want to introduce foods the patient enjoys, and not limit their choice by imposing restrictive constraints on their choices.

Was Harley abused by Leanne?

Right, so as promised I do have an opinion about this. I do not know the full story, of course. When I first saw the video I thought “he looks like a wreck”! But then I realised that was a manipulative attempt by Harley to convince people he was telling the “100% truth”. You could say that I took my preconceived ideas about Leanne into this and I had to keep them in check.

In this instance I see a few things that concern me. Harley consistently hurls insults/accusations at Leanne. This was true by the fact that he was sending her text messages, and in the video he posted where he began by saying “Freelee’s been using botox since 2013, but I don’t judge people who use it…” If you watch the video from start to finish you’ll see it’s a consistent attack on the other person, first botox, then claiming she “changed”, then calling her out for cheating. Notice that he talks about how she used to be carefree but started using makeup as well. What I see are clear actions of a perpetrator trying to exert control over their victim. I’m not saying that Leanne is innocent in this, on that point I do not know, but from what I’ve seen from Harley’s side is clear evidence of a manipulative abuser. He talks about her punching him in the head, but in a later video he says it only happened twice. Which is of course not evidence of systemic abuse against him, but perhaps a desperate attempt by her to fight back. As I said that much is speculation, but it does appear Harley was abusive nevertheless. A victim of abuse is not going to be the one who is sending abuse towards their former partner by texts, those actions alone incriminate Harley.

With all that said I think he made one valid point, which is that Leanne has been using botox since 2013. I don’t think that’s a lie, and I don’t think that Leanne realises how much she has been lying over the years about her health. Yes she might be a raw-to-four vegan, however she also does an excessive amount of exercise and has made use of cosmetic surgeries including her breast reassignment surgery. One thing I’ve learned in nutrition is that the more active a person, the more so-called “crap” they can eat in their diet. She preaches the opposite which is that you need to be excessively active and eat only raw foods. Athletes actually do eat a lot of “junk food” purely for the extra energy they need, and the reason why they can do that is because of their lifestyles. Leanne seems to be completely oblivious to this, and that is why I would caution anyone from taking advice from people like these.

I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind, just please remember to be sceptical and to look at what the evidence says, and not what so-called “health gurus” say.