I completely disagree with this. Food has an enormous impact on your endocrine/nervous/circulatory system. Acne or not, what you eat does affect your bodies physiology both short-term and long-term. I have had moderate acne since I was about 15. I can't SEE the affects that food has on my skin directly very often unless I eat extreme junk. Nevertheless, I know that by eating healthy I am facilitating the battle. This entire belief that food doesn't affect acne (or many other conditions like IBS, Chrons, Arthritis, etc. ) is utter crap.
Psychologically, it is easy to understand that an individual will depend on his control of food in order to cope with a visibly uncontrollable condition. I do think that I am conditioned in such a way, unfortunately. Nevertheless, simply haven taken a few college courses in biochemistry, physiology, and endocrinology has provided me with enough understanding that one really is what he eats.
What you say really bothers me because I hear similar things in the context of cancer. A number of factors contribute to it and yet people don't dare point the finger at the shit they eat and the lifestyle they chose.
Very good post.
I had some problems with cystic acne when I was a teenager. When I saw the doctor, I asked about the possibility of a change in diet to combat acne. He basically told me that diet has no effect, prescribed me some antibiotics for the cystic acne, and then suggested that I go on Accutane. I decided against the Accutane because a friend of mine, who I never really noticed to have particularly bad acne, had started taking it and it "brought out" some serious acne, that lead to some very noticeable scarring later on.
Anyway. Yes. I think it's a bad belief to circulate that diet has no affect on acne. It would be better to say something like, "there's no solid link that's been confirmed".
A friend of mine who was having problems with acne actually quit gluten for a while. As she suspected that she may be gluten intolerant (in a non-severe way). The reasoning being that if she were unknowingly gluten intolerant and consuming gluten, she would be putting stress on her body / it would be some kind of allergic reaction / it would stress out her digestion and thus lead to more acne. I should ask her whether she noticed an improvement in her skin.