To think that Deliciously Ella is unbearably smug?

[Jane1789]

Just that really. I used to be a fan. However recent pregnancy updates are incredibly smug and found her podcast awful - constantly interrupting guests. Am I being mean? Not sure why it annoys me so much!

Timeless19

Is see what you did there.

I just looked up her Instagram post and found nothing wrong with it. I had planned hypnobirthing, ended up having all kinds of induction, epidural, instrumental birth and a third degree tear. The hypnobirthing and a tens machine got me through the seven hours where I was overstimulated by the pessary but hadn't progressed and despite being in constant pain with a back to back baby they wouldn't give me pain relief. I didn't feel like I failed, I felt relieved I'd had one more tool to use and a bit angry nobody told me that if I didn't dilate fast enough I could be in agony but denied an epidural.

I disagree that you get the birth you get and hypnobirthing etc make no difference. I think there's a percentage of women who would have a straightforward birth regardless and a percentage where all would go wrong regardless but in the middle are a lot of people where how in control you feel has a big impact on your experience. Feeling you have control over your own body before and after labour is important and I don't think encouraging people to read Ina Garten is bad.

And I say that as someone with many food issues who also finds her recipes too full of sugar!

Stretch marks - so true!

Apparently they are hereditary and if you get them it’s unavoidable. I have none at all after 3 children and only a cursory bit of Nivea ( first time baby a long time ago I was 7 stone so there was a lot of stretching and last baby I was over 40 with dry old skin!!) I do however have other ‘lovely’ bodily reminders if that’s any consolation!!

Her recipes are very simple and somehow I doubt that if she wasn't a pretty, hugely wealthy and extremely well-connected young woman that she'd have built up the empire she does now

This. It's so annoying when rich people make even more money. And marry other rich people. Share it round a bit, folks!

Can't believe "people" are belittling and mocking mental health.
As someone said up thread, what has what anyone got or hasn't got to do with whether they suffer or not?
Yes, what about Robbie Williams?

Let's hope your ignorant comment doesn't come to bite you on the arse in the form of karma one day.
Oh and well done on potentially making someone else's day that little bit shittier.
Attitudes like those shown are why people don't speak up about how they're feeling.

Robin Williams even

If anything is going to affect people's mental health, it's these mummy bloggers and clean eating bloggers spouting pseudoscience and telling people about how perfect our lives could be if only we were like them. Deliciously Ella has always spouted rubbish about food and has encouraged restrictive eating and misinformation. She started a wave of other 'models telling us about how much they love food but are a size 4'. It's designed to make people feel shit when they can't be as shiny and beautiful as them, because they don't reveal everything about their lives, like what they actually eat, or the doctors they are seeing or how much money and time they have that others don't.

Typical..because she's beautiful, successful, looks after herself, gorgeous figure etc etc, she must be smug.

Meghan Markle gets this as well, it's pure jealousy if we're honest.

I'm with you, I honestly don't get the mentality, @MoodieFoodie.
I mean, does it make people momentarily feel better about themselves bitching and dragging others down, or what?
It's not just about Ella is it, I mean this is a massive international forum everyone reads and you see shit like that spouted about mental health upthread.
Horrible.

Yes she is smug. The whole conflation of self improvement and food is unbearably smug. People eat up the narrative in an effort to consume and own a portion of that smugness. It wouldn't be appealing otherwise.

I think it's fine to find it upsetting or annoying, but you need to unfollow her, it's not actually her fault. You've said it's a bit about you (your difficult birth) and that's fine but you need to step away from things that trigger that, not expect random strangers to stop producing them.

I had a look at the post you meant and instantly regretted it - it upset me. But that's about me. I had three miscarriages and then a pregnancy where they kept finding suspected problems (ectopic heartbeat, suspected iugr, reduced movements) that thank god never came to anything but kept me in constant terror. I find other people having a lovely, optimistic time in pregnancy quite upsetting because I felt really robbed of that. I can't imagine what it's like to be pregnant and to just have your basic assumption be that you're going to get a baby at the end, and that makes me really sad. I now have my gorgeous DS so I don't think about it much, but stuff like her post brings it all flooding back. BUT that's about me, not her. She's allowed to be happy, optimistic and even a bit naive. She's not a friend talking directly to me (who maybe should be a bit more sensitive).

Unfollow by all means - and due to her business model, that might mean she stops doing it if enough people feel like you. But it's not really fair to say she's doing something wrong.

Yes, water is perfectly safe. It’s also rather boring, and every now and then it’s nice to drink something else.

Yeah it's all a bit smug and cringe worthy but social media just is. She's a brand, this is on brand for her. In person I imagine she has the same insecurities and faults as you or me. I don't believe anyone is the same or as perfect as they portray on social media.

Ahh she’s just a standard FTM. I was the same and I’m sure many are... Hypnobirthing went out of the window when I had back to back contractions for 12 hours solid . I was rolling and writhing around in agony begging for an epidural, everything in the books was completely irrelevant.

She will learn when she’s knees deep in shit and puke.

Just to add on to my earlier post - we all do things that seem smug or jealousy-inducing to other people. A colleague of mine told me that she felt a bit jealous and very inadequate because of how 'normal' I was in pregnancy - walking everywhere, going on work trips, doing a big work project, etc. That was because I was lucky to have a very physically easy pregnancy, but also because, as stated above, I didn't think I'd get a baby at the end so was trying just to carry on, and also hated making small talk about my pregnancy so never brought it up at work. I didn't feel smug or even happy at all, but it still made her feel that way - and that's valid, but not my fault.

Yes I stand by what I said heiress or not she took on board criticism and clearly made a decision based on that.
In an age where everyone is so worried about allergies and the seriousness she was open to being educated about it and made the right decision. I haven’t seen any threads about that though 🤔

The link between depression and anxiety in women and the "perfect" looks/lifestyle they are supposed to uphold, previously in so-called women's magazines and now on IG, is well known. To deny it is absurd.

I’ve avoided her like the plague ever since she announced it took her a whole ‘week’ to conceive. People like that are ridiculous! It’s not enough to say they fell pregnant first month of trying it has to be reduced down to weeks as she’s so great at pregnancy.

Anyone that finds her annoying for whatever reason just unfollow her. Leave her be. Let her get on with it. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t. I only follow people on Instagram that I like for various reasons, I find it absurd that people keep tabs on someone that they find smug.

Anyone that finds her annoying for whatever reason just unfollow her. Leave her be. Let her get on with it. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t. I only follow people on Instagram that I like for various reasons, I find it absurd that people keep tabs on someone that they find smug

Some people enjoy being nasty and putting other people down. It makes them feel better about themselves I guess. (Even though it really just makes you feel worse and saying “well done to her for making a success of her self. I don’t enjoy her posts so I will unfollow” to themselves would actually make themselves feel better than all the bitterness.)

Typical..because she's beautiful, successful, looks after herself, gorgeous figure etc etc, she must be smug.

Omg here we go...must be a male poster.

Male poster because someone said that?
Sorry, but what are you actually on about?
Other women can't think it's ridiculous to hate follow people you don't like and run to a forum to laugh at them or call them smug? Must be a bloke if you honestly can't comprehend why people would publicly put down and sneer at successful/good looking /rich whatever? A OK to dismiss mental health issues?
Alrighty then. Must be a bloke. Bizarre.

I agree. I don’t know why you would follow someone so insufferable. I read one interview and her replies were so smug I actively avoid her! Would never follow her online.

I am not in the least surprised that she’s in the “pain is just fear leaving the body” brigade. Bollocks, is it. In this case, pain is just the baby leaving your body, by whichever exit, and then the aftermath of that which can last years. The cult of positivity can do one.

Some parts of the world are full of women who have no choice but to trust their bodies because they don’t have access to decent maternity / intrapartum / postnatal care. Far more of them and their babies tragically die. Filling people’s heads with this outright wishful thinking is dangerous, especially when you have followers who are already brainwashed into believing what you’re selling (literally - processed snacks packed with more fat and sugar than a chocolate bar, shame on her).

If I’d trusted my body to do as it pleases, my children would have died. If I bought her obscenely priced snacks in waitrose I’d be even fatter than I am now.

I don't dislike her personally, but this whole 'look at my perfect life and beautifully lit photos and aspirational lifestyle and stylish clothes and gorgeous hair and toned body" thing seems to be symptomatic of something amiss in our society.
I'm glad I was a young woman in the 80s and 90s and wasn't under this kind of intense media pressure to be picture perfect.