diet-culture: what it is and isn't
Diet-culture. I’ve realized this is a really confusing term, one that isn’t always clearly defined. I think that understanding this term, what it is and what it is not, is really important if we are to live conscious lives. I’m good at explaining things in a way that makes sense to people— it’s the teacher in me. So, since it’s international anti-diet day, I wanted to take a minute and unpack this concept for you.
First, let’s unpack the word “diet”. The word itself can mean a lot of things to different people. The original meaning of the word (diaita) was actually used to represent an entire way of life. It was used to simply mean how a person was living, encompassing food, drink, and movement. The word is also used to identify how a person eats. Some people follow a vegan or vegetarian diet. The most common use of the word, though, is food restriction (of calories or of certain food groups) to achieve weight loss. The diet industry is a billion-dollar industry. I said in a previous blog post that the diet industry is a sheep dressed in wolf skin. The diet industry perfectly and precisely markets their products to you in the name of “health”, but really, so that you’ll buy their product and they’ll make money. I hate to burst your bubble if you thought they really cared about your health…but I digress.
Dieting has a long history. But it really blew up in 1998 when all of a sudden people became fatter overnight. Not because they actually became fatter, but because the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to lower the BMI, not because people were unhealthy, but because the diet industry wanted to make more money and wanted more people to diet. Guess who funded this arbitrary change? The makers of a weight loss drug (*eye roll*).
“Culture” is a kind of catch-all word because it encompasses so many things. What makes up culture are things like social behaviors, beliefs, thoughts, feelings, values, stories, languages, systems, and attitudes. Culture is learned and passed down.
So then “diet-culture” is a system of beliefs and values and attitudes that influence us to engage in certain dieting behaviors. Diet-culture is and has historically been a very powerful force in shaping our relationship not only with food but with ourselves and with others.
I really appreciate Christy Harrison’s work on this subject. Like, she’s the expert on this topic. She’s a badass non-diet/Health at Every Size (HAES) dietician. Google her. She’s a force for good in this world.
She defines diet-culture as:
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.
What I want you to do is stop here and go re-read those bullet points slowly. Think critically about them. Do you see this in our mainstream, Western culture? Where do you see it? Have you been impacted by it? How does it make you feel?
Diet-culture isn’t really about food. It’s not really about eating at all. It’s about how our culture has privileged certain identities (thin, small, white, able-bodied). It’s about the biases and judgments that get hurled at people in bigger bodies because of beliefs that we often fail to call into question.
Diet culture is the reason why, when we sit on the floor and our belly hangs over our leggings after we just ate a meal, we hurl judgments at ourselves. Have you ever thought about why we do that?! Because we’ve internalized the thin ideal. We’ve bought into a set of beliefs that have interlaced our body shape/size with our worth and lovability. If there was no “thin ideal”, if thinness wasn’t privileged or worshipped or assigned a higher status, we wouldn’t give a fuck.
I am an anti-diet activist because I work with clients recovering from eating disorders and body shaming behaviors. I was also a client in recovery myself. My eating disorder began as a diet and my story is not uncommon. The best-known environmental contributor to the development of eating disorders is the idealization of thinness, and the idealization of thinness comes from diet culture. Dieting is the most salient predictor of eating disorders in adolescents. Why? Because we’ve privileged thinness— these beliefs are woven into the fabric of the mainstream culture. We’ve been conditioned— by a set of cultural beliefs— to worship and idolize it.
Can I tell you what I find ironic? This obsession with thinness and so-called “health” is making us all sicker. This is why I am an anti-diet activist. This is why I speak up about this. This is why I risk being misunderstood. Because it’s pervasive and disgusting and harmful.
Something I hear a lot is this. “So, you’re anti-diet culture. Does that mean you just think people should live off a diet of Oreos, processed foods, and vegetable oil?” First of all, I am not demonizing these foods (especially Oreos). Second of all— NO. People who have this response are missing the point, largely due to black-and-white thinking. And I have a lot of compassion for those people because I used to be one of them! Diet-culture is sneaky and manipulative. Being anti-diet does not mean that I’m anti-health. I promote Intuitive Eating, which rejects the diet mentality and embraces an “all foods fit” approach. Being anti-diet does not mean that I’m anti-dieters. It does mean that I’m anti-oppression and anti-discrimination based on the size/shape of someone’s body.
Life as a diet-culture dropout has given me freedom and power and confidence. Food choices can be made freely and without judgment or shame. Self-compassion becomes a primary way of relating to self and to others. Movement honors the body; it no longer punishes it. Smallness is no longer the goal because we weren’t put on this planet to stay small, in both body and mind. You and me, we deserve to take up space and to do something remarkable and meaningful with our one precious life.
In Tuesday’s with Morrie, Albom writes, “The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it.”
Diet-culture doesn’t work. So let’s stop buying it.
Fiercely,
Rachel