diet culture: a wolf dressed in sheepskin

Since 2012, I’ve been in recovery from disordered eating. My recovery journey has taught me so many things, but this year specifically, I’ve discovered how diet-culture contributed to and even helped maintain my disordered eating patterns. And ya’ll, it’s been illuminating. Eating disorders are complex, and there is no “one factor” that causes them or maintains them. But diet culture is absolutely one of those many factors, and I am committed to speaking out about it.

Diet culture has ingrained in so many of our minds, and especially us women, the narrative that we must eat a certain way to look a certain way to be valued, to be loved, to be accepted. Diet culture says skinnier is better, more beautiful, more worthy of belonging in this world. Diet culture says we need to listen to ‘their advice’, instead of the incredible wisdom and power that lives inside our beautiful bodies. Industries profit (like, they’re making billions of dollars off of our insecurities), and by consequence, we become more and more detached from what our bodies want and need.

Dieting/restriction leads to disordered eating, obsession with your body and food, binge eating, a wacky metabolism, and disconnection from your truest self. It perpetuates shame and self-directed criticism. The research is pretty clear— diets don’t work in the long term, and the anxiety that creeps up as a result of dieting can actually be more harmful to our health than the impact of dieting itself. The research also tells us that our society's obsession with dieting and weight loss is less about keeping trim than about money, power, trends, and impossible ideals (*to read more about this, Google Gina Kolata and her book “Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss-and the Myths and Realities of Dieting”).

All in all, dieting sells rigidity, self-denial, and false promise. It’s a wolf dressed in sheepskin.  

And it’s not just the diet industry now that is, in part, to blame, but also the wellness industry. These two— diet culture + “wellness culture”— are like Cinderella’s evil step-sisters at the Prince’s ball. They’re packaged nicely, enticing even…but it’s only that, a look, an illusion. Recently, a New York Times article was published, and Jessica Knoll said this about the wellness culture:

• “(it is) a dangerous con that seduces smart women with pseudoscientific claims of increasing energy, reducing inflammation, lowering the risk of cancer and healing skin, gut and fertility problems. But at its core, “wellness” is about weight loss. It demonizes calorically dense and delicious foods, preserving a vicious fallacy: Thin is healthy and healthy is thin.”

Mic drop, yo. Also, go read that article. I’ll link it below.

Yes, diet culture deserves the middle-finger because it’s sold us all harm and false promise. But maybe rather than just giving it the middle finger, what if we became a little bit more critical about the information that we see and absorb and tolerate? What if we started to look INSIDE of ourselves for what we need, instead of to other people? What if we started to look at our internalized food rules and became a little bit more curious about where they came from and how they serve us? What if recognizing diet culture for the bullshit that it is could actually help us to have way more compassion for ourselves? Like it’s really not our faults we bought into this stuff.  

I have truly experienced a kind of freedom with food that I never thought was possible. And my relationship with food is nowhere near perfect—I am human, and I am triggered, and I am not immune to societal pressures and beauty standards. I have my bad days, days when I look at the cellulite on my ass and think, yuck. The compulsive behaviors could absolutely resurface at any time; And yet, I am grateful for all that learning to eat intuitively has given me. Like ice cream with friends, or a slice (or even two) of bread with dinner or skipping a workout to sit on the couch and read a great novel. Like actually cooking with butter and falling back in love with the creativity that I get to express in the kitchen. Intuitive eating has led to spontaneity, flexibility, and joy, things I never thought were possible when disordered eating controlled my life.  

If you are in recovery, maybe these things sound great, and also feel so difficult. It IS difficult. It is painful. It IS so hard to unlearn deep conditioning, and to create new ways, new patterns, new beliefs about yourself. But, keep going. Remember that healing is not linear, yet cyclical. Honor your baby steps. Hold yourself in love, even when you backslide, actually, especially when you backslide. You don’t need to love your body in order to respect it. Start with respect, start there. And see what unfolds.

*If you are in recovery and know someone in recovery and are looking for some resources, I’ve complied a list for you! This is by no means an exhaustive list; these are just the resources that have been helpful to me along the way.

-       Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

-       Body Kindness by Rebecca Scritchfield

-       The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown

-       Eating in Light of the Moon by Anita Johnston

-       Life without Ed by Jenni Schaefer

-       Body Respect by Linda Bacon

-       Self-compassion by Kristin Neff

And, my soul sister and life-long best friend, who is also in recovery, just published a truly beautiful E-book called: Embodied Wholeness. It is a spiritually inspirational workbook for women who self-punish through negative habits around food, eating + body shame. You can purchase it on her website: http://www.symbioticwellness.com/new-products-1

*New York Times Article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/opinion/sunday/women-dieting-wellness.html