TW: mention of bulimia/eating disorders
Lots of things make me angry. Poverty. Injustice. The patriarchy. The fact that it’s 2021 and we STILL lack real pockets in women’s clothing.
Because of what I do for a living, I tend to live in constant a state of rage against the world. However, one thing that can get my blood boiling the fastest is the Diet Industrial Complex – also known as “diet culture.”
What diet culture is
Diet culture is the mouthpiece of the $70 billion diet industry, promoting the view that your weight is the most important thing about your health. And the term “Industrial Complex” is when businesses get wrapped up in social or political systems and then profit from those systems. It doesn’t matter if those systems are inefficient or dangerous. So, the Diet Industrial Complex means a lot of people are investing a lot of money in making you believe that being thinner at all costs can’t possibly be bad for you.
In 2020, we all saw the news articles focused on weight loss/gain and exercise in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. The media was obsessed, and for the most part the message was the same: “Nevermind that your bodies are dealing with the trauma of an unprecedented global pandemic and people are dying – get off the couch, people!”
This year, a few articles (see here and here, as examples) took the step of calling out the diet industry for profiting off of people’s insecurities for decades. But a few articles won’t lead to lasting change. That starts with us.
My first encounter with diet culture
I developed bulimia in high school. I first started purging as a way to calm my brain down and take back control from what I now know to be ADHD. At the time, I rationalized that since my struggle was with my brain and eating disorders were only about food (or so I thought), I obviously wasn’t “that sick.” As time went on, though, I began purging more frequently. I couldn’t let people know that the mostly-straight A student who was class president and co-captain of the basketball team actually had trouble concentrating and keeping her mind from racing.
Two things happened around the same time that my eating disorder really took over: adults were commenting on how “thin” and grown up I looked, and dieting was suddenly everywhere. Girls in my circle began discussing how many carbs were in fruit. Everyone knew someone who drank Slimfast shakes or did Weight Watchers (which, in case you forgot, assigned point values to food – and still does). Teen magazines made headlines like “Best and Worst Beach Bodies” front-page news for 12-17 year olds. For the first time, I started connecting this terrible thing I was doing to my body to the supposedly positive practice of weight loss.
It wasn’t until a friend called a hotline and told my parents that I finally had a wakeup call about my eating disorder. But where was the wakeup call about counting every calorie, drinking shakes as meals, and demonizing entire food groups? How had diet culture infiltrated everything seemingly overnight?
Why diet culture really sucks
If diet culture is so toxic, why don’t we just avoid it altogether? Because not everything is as obviously ridiculous as locking your jaw shut to lose weight.
One of the most insidious things about diet culture is how it markets dieting and other weight-restricting behaviors as “health and wellness tools.” No one in their right mind would ever say that being healthy or well is a bad thing, right? Linking dieting to health in this way makes it an untouchable personal choice, and thus makes you a jerk if you question what someone else thinks is healthy for them. There are even doctors and nutritionists that still buy into BMI and put patients and clients on starvation diets in the name of health. And so, things like juice cleanses, appetite suppressants, keto, and “lifestyle” apps that color-code food all become normalized.
All in the pursuit of health and wellness.
Three things that are helping me “peace out” of diet culture
1. I don’t count or measure anything
I don’t track calories or macros. I don’t weigh my food, and I don’t know my own weight until I go for my annual check up. I don’t own any fitness tech, and the fitness goals I set for myself have nothing to do with my weight. For example, I’m currently working on being able to do pull-ups (and friends, I’m nearly there!)
While these are personal choices I’ve made based on my struggle with an eating disorder, I feel like this approach has given me a more holistic sense of what it means to be the best version of myself physically, mentally, and emotionally.
2. I’m working on changing my narrative around food
Equating weight with health has lead to food being labeled as “good” and “bad.” But food has no moral value. Food is food. And therefore, you are not a better person because you choose lettuce (a “good” food”) over a cookie (a “bad” food).
Because of my history, talking about food can be hard. But we need to change how we talk about food, especially the enjoyment of it. Reclaiming this narrative for me helps me continue healing my relationship with my body. It also, hopefully, sends a message to those around me that there is another way. We don’t have to beat ourselves up for meeting one of our most basic human needs.
3. I’m diversifying my social feeds
There are many voices out there who can unpack diet culture far better than me. By following these people, I not only educate myself but also ensure that I’m surrounding myself with things that serve my recovery well, verses uninformed influencer posts that would set me back. Two I’d recommend starting with on Instagram are @thenutritiontea and @meg.boggs.
Moving forward
Because of how systemic diet culture has become, thinking of how to escape it can feel overwhelming. And I need you to know that for all my rage against diet culture, I still have bad days. I have days where anxiety tells me it’s terrible to enjoy my food and my body dysmorphia makes me want to hide. But there are small choices we can make every day that can help put us on the path to living lives that are bigger than what we eat or how we move our bodies.
Dieting can be hard to talk about and I know way may not always agree. However, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts, as well as if there are ways I may be able to help support you.
