Recognizing Diet Culture

amberlynwellbeing
Jan 3, 2023
2 min read

Diet Culture. We’re surrounded by it whether we know it or not.

It can be a hot topic, but what is it exactly?

Diet culture is characterized by a collection of beliefs; size=health, the thinner you are the healthier you are, and there is a moral hierarchy of bodies. It's composed of ever-changing myths about food and bodies. It’s a social expectation of the food we should eat and what we should look like.

It often disguises itself as promoting ‘health’ and ‘wellness’, but it can do so much harm.

It encourages food morality, which in turn can lead to feelings of guilt and fear around foods that have been labeled as ‘bad’. Food restriction can often lead to an unhealthy relationship with food which in turn can lead to dehydration, constipation, muscle loss and more.

I have often seen diet culture encouraging the idea the movement is a punishment. Movement should a celebration to your body and a way to push yourself. Not something that is used to punish yourself fo the food you eat.

How does diet culture show up in our society?

There is no shortage of ways, here are but a few:

When a description for clothes or beauty products includes that is can make you look thinner
When people say they need to workout to compensate for what they just ate
When personal trainers or any other fitness professional offers nutritional advice when you didnt ask for it
When family members comment on your weight
Determining your value based on the food you eat
Eating a ‘bad’ food because you earned it

The more you look the more incidences you see diet culture permeating different parts of our lives.

What can we do about it?

It’s no easy thing. There may be behaviors that you participate in that feed into diet culture. Here are a few things we can do to combat it:

Avoid talking about someones eating habits or body
Notice the language you use around food and exercise
- Is food either good or bad
- Do you have to ‘earn’ your food
- Do you link exercise to the food you eat?
Remember that thinness doesn't always equal health
Eat intuitively
- Listen to your body without judgement
Discover movement/exercise as it’s own entity