Influencers clash over India’s protein needs

Influencers debate India's protein intake, sparking controversy over dietary advice and nutritional needs in the health community.

There’s a war underway. No, not the one on your television screens. This one’s playing out on your phones, and the target is, of all things, your protein intake.

For those who don’t live their lives online, here’s the executive summary. On April 1, celebrity health and wellness influencer Rujuta Diwekar posted a reel pegged ostensibly to a common predicament of the older of her 1.8 million Instagram followers: their children were urging them to include more protein in their diet. In a line that evokes the no-uterus-no-opinion stand on abortion adopted by pro-choice advocates, Diwekar said they should ignore their sons’ advice on food, including protein, collagen, creatine, omega-3, and prebiotics, till such time they were cooking meals for multiple people every day. “Bachha hain, bada hone do [He’s a child, let him grow up],” she signs off.

A post shared by Rujuta Diwekar (@rujuta.diwekar)

If the intent was to trigger multiple groups with a single post — the algorithms of social media reward provocative posts with higher engagement, which translates into more followers and, consequently, greater reach/influence, and therefore higher economic benefits via brand deals — Diwekar had hit the sweet spot. With more than 1.8 million views and 10,000-odd shares at the time of writing, her highest numbers in the current calendar year, it can be safely said, Diwekar had “gone viral”.

Within days, if not hours, the pushback started: counter-reels from doctors, qualified nutritionists, trainers, fitness coaches. Television personality Mini Mathur, who recently reinvented herself as a certified women’s health coach and founded Pausitive, an initiative focused on menopause education and care, wrote on Diwekar’s post: “You are a beacon in nutrition… but when YOU tell women their nutritional needs come last… you are putting us decades back. When a son tells his mom she needs evidence based nutritional requirements… we should encourage the debate.”

“I wondered for a second if [Diwekar’s post] was an April fool’s joke,” says Nandita Iyer. She holds an MBBS with a fellowship in applied nutrition, is a health coach and author, most recently, of No Gods, No Gurus: A Radical Guide to Your Wellbeing (Bloomsbury, December 2025). Iyer (@saffrontrail), who upholds nutrition, movement, sleep and stress management as the four pillars of healthcare, put out her rebuttal reel to her 220k followers a few days later, taking umbrage especially with the dismissal of the younger generation, and backing up her points with peer-reviewed studies.