What Is Diet Culture? How Does It Hurt Us?
Sometimes naming something sheds light on something that you previously just thought was normal or how things are. It didn’t need a name because it was just - life. But once t is named and examined and interrogated some - it becomes obvious that this force has been here all along - invisible and covert and with its fingerprints all over everything.
This realization can be disorienting at first. Waking up to Diet Culture can feel wobbly and uncertain and confusing.
What you thought was OBJECTIVELY right is now…not?
Being thin is good and fat is bad - right?
When someone loses weight - you are supposed to congratulate them - right?
Going on a diet is a good thing because
Our bodies could always be better in some way
Dieting shows discipline and “taking care” of yourself
Being seen as fat is telling people you do not care about yourself or there is something wrong with you.
Right?
Well…No. That’s Diet Culture.
First - let’s define what Diet Culture is.
I am going to use Christy Harrison’s definition because it is comprehensive and clear. She is the host of the Food Psych Podcast and the author of Anti Diet and is worth your time if you are intrigued by this topic.
What is Diet Culture?
Diet culture is a system of beliefs that:
Worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue, which means you can spend your whole life thinking you’re irreparably broken just because you don’t look like the impossibly thin “ideal.”
Promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher status, which means you feel compelled to spend a massive amount of time, energy, and money trying to shrink your body, even though the research is very clear that almost no one can sustain intentional weight loss for more than a few years.
Demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others, which means you’re forced to be hyper-vigilant about your eating, ashamed of making certain food choices, and distracted from your pleasure, your purpose, and your power.
Oppresses people who don't match up with its supposed picture of “health,” which disproportionately harms women, femmes, trans folks, people in larger bodies, people of color, and people with disabilities, damaging both their mental and physical health.
See - I told you it was a good definition!
Diet Culture is a way of giving moral weight to people with less weight - and it compounds with racism, colorism and gendered understandings of beauty that make it mean something about you if you do not look a certain way or meet this culturally constructed ideal.
It is rampant - so rampant that it is almost invisible.
We are supposed to lose weight (or gain weight in a very specific way - for some male identified people) and we are supposed to not eat “bad foods” and we are supposed to judge ourselves and our worth based on how we look.
Diet Culture is the policing of our bodies and the manifestation of our culture’s fatphobia.
But how does this harm us? Diets are good right? We want to “be healthy” right?
B) Diet Culture can actually make us more obsessive about food and lead to disordered eating.
C) Diet Culture can moralize food for us and lead to a lot of feelings of shame and low self worth around gaining weight or not losing weight.
D) Diet Culture prevents us from having intuitive and connected relationships with our bodes - our bodies become a place where we have to exert control instead of a part of us that can provide feedback and support.
E) Our self worth or feelings toward ourselves become externalized - which leads to fear based actions.
F) It wastes our time and energy.
It is never as simple as just stopping thinking this way. It is ingrained in many of us from a young age and it can take a lot of work of un-learning. Sometimes it can be helpful to talk with a counselor about this.
There are so many resources out there as well.
If you are struggling with Diet Culture and disordered eating, you are not alone and it is not your fault. There is hope and healing and body liberation and acceptance out there for you.
The journey is hard but worth it and right now - there is a whole movement around learning to live in your body as it is with kindness and less fear.
