Diet Culture - Do You Feel Pressure?
No matter where you look, we're surrounded by it. How do we see past it and look at health as a measure, rather than body size?
What is diet culture?
Diet culture is a phenomena that was born out of the idealisation of bodies, particularly women's bodies, to be small and attractive.
Amy takes us through a more indepth look at this potentially harmful industry.
Wanting to alter your body as a woman is not a terrible thing....
However the issue with diet cultures ideology is that it values the ideals of smallness and thinness over health and wellbeing. In today's society where, thanks to technology, we are surrounded by marketing, influencers and false depictions of beauty, it seems that this idealisation of a woman's body has become quite toxic.
Basically
Diet culture is a societal focus on the value of small and attractive bodies in women.
Diet Culture Focuses on Size
Diet culture seems to have made weight, size or aesthetics synonymous with health, status or morality e.g. that person is fat they must be lazy. Many of us even do this subconsciously, purely on face value we might naturally find ourselves drawn to the attractive woman at the networking meeting. We may find ourselves thinking, perhaps even just inwardly, that that family member, friend or colleague that’s a bit overweight just doesn’t care enough. Without even considering the genetic, environmental and behavioural barriers that that person may face. I would argue, care enough for what? Society's ideal of what they should be? I should hope not! Diet culture continues to perpetuate stigma against larger people and can lead to issues with body image in women of all shapes and sizes.
Basically
Diet culture perpetuates a systemic weight stigma that can lead to body image issues.
Diet Culture uses Rules and Regulations
Diets that are pushed in diet culture often come with their own set of unique, and sometimes bizarre, rules and regulations. It preaches that you can no longer be trusted (you little glutton) and you need to be kept in check with a whole list of rules that you must follow. The sheer amount of people that follow some of these diets is enough to make you think that you are not ‘good’ enough if you too can’t stick with it. Have you tried going on keto (high fat, low carb diet) when you love chocolate and pasta, but everyone around you seems to think it’s a great idea, so you just feel weak for not being able to stick with it. Just me? Probably not! In some cases the complexity of the diet scheme itself seems to support the necessity of its own existence e.g. having to learn the points scheme of WW or the syns (it even sounds awful) of Slimming World makes it seem like they should be a thing...it is not a thing. These unrealistic rules that we follow in each and every diet that we attempt, takes us further from our natural internal eating cues and increases our likelihood of disordered eating, food - guilt association and a sense of failure. This can have a huge impact on your self esteem. Who wants to go through life feeling like a failure just for living in the body you have!
Basically
Diet culture imposes rules onto dietary practises that are restrictive and far removed from your body's natural regulatory eating cues. This can lead to disordered eating and low self esteem.
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Read on to learn how diet culture tricks us and ways we can challenge it!
Diet Culture Monetizes your Misery!
At the end of the day diet culture is an industry. That doesn’t mean that all of the nutrition industry is a capitalist money sucking leech, but you do need to be aware of the pitfalls. As in many industries where there is money to be made there is motivation for snake oil salesmen or women. Many people, especially those struggling to attain the cultural ideals as discussed above, are left vulnerable to marketing claims made by disingenuous diet pushers. This is a trap that is so easy to fall into, if you don’t have a background in nutrition or biology it can be very difficult to smell the proverbial rat. It becomes even harder when the diet pushing is coming from a person you know or trust or those that are wholeheartedly genuine in their beliefs. This still doesn’t make it right and it doesn’t make it safe. One way to combat this is to get educated around your needs and nutrition, even then just make sure you fall in with the right crowd. There’s some very un-scientific ‘evidence based’ stuff going on out there.
Basically
Some diets are sold just to make money by unqualified or disingenuous people. Educate yourself on your needs so that you can separate the wheat from the chaff.
Diet Culture Uses Smoke and Mirrors
More recently diet culture seems to have morphed into ‘lifestyle’ culture. This involves just as many dietary rules, frameworks to learn, products to buy...but ‘love yourself’ messaging going on alongside it. Tell me you love yourself without telling me you love yourself…hands you a big pile of ‘heath’ pills for a monthly payment of $99.99.99. Oh and it still values your size, or lack thereof, as the most valuable outcome!
So many ‘healthy’ diets are on the market; keto, 5:2, paleo, carnivore, vegan, pegan, 20/20, blood type diet, raw food, the midlife method and the list goes on, usually backed up by some Doctor. Just a heads up Doctors are paid to put their name on diet books. I would stay skeptical. If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. If someone has found the answer to your weight loss woes and absolutely no-one else has come to the same conclusion because they know a secret, they are lying. This is not to say that these diets don’t cause weight loss. My point here is that they are not necessary and it is unhealthy to shoehorn yourself into a generic plan based on nothing about your health, wants and needs and everything about quick fixes and quick bucks.
Basically
Diet culture has adopted a more caring sounding lifestyle approach, whilst selling the same size orientated and toxic ideals.
Challenging diet culture.
Challenging diet culture is important for your long term mental and physical health, and also important for the health of future generations. You can still strive for changes in your body if you want to but this should always be in support of and never at the expense of your health, especially your mental health.
A few key things that you can do to challenge diet culture:
- Keep an open mind of health on a spectrum at any size
- Alter your acceptable standards of self to the reality you apply to others around you
- Hold your health and ultimately yourself in higher regard than the ideal, diet culture is selling to you
- Avoid aesthetic centric conversation, focus instead on people's skills, personalities and their effect on the world
- Avoid negative self talk which depletes self esteem and decreases your health
- Avoid social media that negatively impacts the way you feel about yourself
- Question black and white thinking. Beware of certainty in a science that is highly dependent on variables. The answer is rarely one size fits all
Basically
Dieting and the ideal that diet culture sells to you is not the only way to be happy. You can challenge diet culture and improve your relationship with your body now regardless of its size.
Let’s Sum It Up
Diet culture is a societal focus on small bodies as an ideal for women. It attaches value to size and perpetuates systemic weight stigma. It endorses the use of dietary rules and restrictions to attain the culturally acceptable body ideal. This can lead to poor body image, disordered eating and mental health issues amongst women of all shapes and sizes. Diets are sold with little regard for health but are increasingly being marketed as a ‘lifestyle’ change. You can challenge diet culture by prioritising your self esteem and health over your aesthetic goals.
For a much more in depth discussion into the influence of diet culture and how you can challenge it, listen to Amy’s DediKate Eat Great chat - Episode #45 on Diet Culture.
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