Written By: Mollye Varon, MS, RD, LD
What is Diet Culture?
Diet culture is everywhere. It’s on social media, in the ads we see, in the language we describe food and our bodies, and the advice we hear from well-respected family and friends. Diet culture has become so normalized, and while it promises beauty, happiness, and health, the accuracy is that this culture is doing more harm than good—negatively affecting both physical and mental health.
Health looks different for everyone, regardless of what you hear otherwise. Diet culture can make you think otherwise. Diet culture takes logical nutrition advice and twists it to where it is no longer truthful. For example, diet culture has allowed society to think you must prioritize constant thought around food, calories, and appearance. It is a mindset that encourages restrictive eating and unattainable beauty standards.
Let’s discuss a few of the harmful side effects of diet culture.
Development of Disordered Eating Patterns and Eating Disorders
Diet culture emphasizes restrictive eating calorie deficits labeling foods as good and bad and an unhealthy preoccupation with food. This thinking can lead to guilt and shame around food choices and habits. In addition to disordered eating, these behaviors can lead to disordered eating and eating disorders like binge eating disorder, anorexia nervosa, and bulimia nervosa .
Increased Risk of Weight Cycling
Diet culture often motivates repeated cycles of weight loss and gain. Weight cycling is common among certain eating disorders and those with poor body image. Dieting and restriction leads to overeating and binge-eating. Weight cycling goes hand-in-hand with the restrict-binge cycle.
Physical Health Risks
As mentioned previously, diet culture emphasizes restrictive eating, calorie deficits and the labeling of foods. Restricted eating habits can lead to nutritional deficiencies, metabolic disturbances, and hormonal imbalances. Restricted eating habits can result in impaired development and growth in adolescents. Malnutrition can lead to testosterone issues and menstrual irregularities, along with poor bone density in adults.
Negative Body Image and Low Self-Esteem.
Diet culture sets unrealistic standards regarding nutrition intake and beauty standards. These unrealistic standards help diet culture adopt low self-esteem and negative body image. Societal pressures have allowed individuals to comply with these ideas, which can further progress into mental health issues and a negative perception of yourself.
Steering Away from Diet Culture and Repairing Your Relationship with Food
From intuitive eating to letting go of food labeling, there are several factors involved when it comes to letting go or trying to avoid diet culture. Here are some ideas to challenge diet culture:
Practice Intuitive Eating
Use your instincts and rational thoughts to honor the messages of your body. Focus on listening to your body’s hunger and fullness cues rather than following external rules. Engage in a healthier relationship with food by eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re satisfied.
Challenging Diet Talk
Set boundaries around conversations about dieting, food, weight loss, and body image. You can politely redirect the conversation away from these topics or express your desire for more body-positive talk.
Surround Yourself with a Supportive Community
Don’t hesitate to reach out for help. Connect with others, either in-person or virtually, who share the same desire to move away from diet culture. Support is never a negative thing; support is needed for positive reinforcement.
You don’t need to dive into diet culture, there are numerous other tactics and factors that challenge the ideas involved in diet culture. Why continue following rigid rules, when you can be happy and healthy without them? Let’s learn to trust our body!
