Hi all, Julie here. Silicon Valley is a place for testing radical new products, economic theories and more recently, dietary choices. In the most extreme versions, participants forgo eating for several days straight or only eat one meal a day. The Atkins diet or Weight Watchers look quaint by comparison.

Proponents have dubbed these sorts of diets “biohacking.” Many others describe them as eating disorders. Jack Dorsey, the chief executive officer of Twitter Inc. and Square Inc., recently gave an interview to a fitness podcast, where he outlined his one-meal-a-day, fish-arugula-and-berries routine. The Washington Post drew renewed attention to this apparent glorification of questionable dietary habits in a column last week.

Now, I’m about to get very personal for a minute. There’s a reason the Post article resonated with me: I did the same thing in high school, and I ended up in the hospital and nearly died because of it.

The calorie counts and time spent eating were similar. Part of me took some gratification from these extreme diets gaining traction. It made me feel a little more secure about what I went through as a kid. But there’s a bigger part of me that knows this is not OK for most people and that others should know as well.

Fasting is an important element of many religions. And for Dorsey or someone in otherwise good health and with the disposable income to spend on regular visits to a nutritionist, bio experimentation can have benefits. Some say periods of occasional fasting can bring about increased mental focus. But it can be a dangerous proposition for many people.

Monica Hesse, the Post columnist, posits that the reactions to the Dorsey diet would be dramatically more visceral if it came from a woman. This is probably true, but the dreadful consequences of eating disorders aren’t isolated to one gender. There were several boys in the recovery program I was in and millions of Americans with eating disorders. By elevating similar health habits by the rich and famous, we risk making the problem even worse. —Julie VerHage