It seems like every time you go online or check your feed, there’s a new diet trend taking over. Dieting can be a great way to practice self-control, focus on specific nutrients, and set personal goals, but diving into the deep end of diet culture may be more harmful than helpful.
The term diet culture refers to the judgmental practice of certain diets that focus on thinness and beauty rather than health and wellness. In the long run, a diet should be used to better yourself on the inside and out. It’s important not to neglect inner health on the basis of beauty, and diet culture encourages that misinterpretation of a healthy diet.
Today, it can be common to reject diet culture and ask questions like why is diet culture harmful, rather than putting the idea on a pedestal in society. Even though the dangers of diet culture are coming to light more directly today, we still have a lot to learn (and unlearn!).
Diet Culture Definition
Diet culture is an outdated system of beliefs that equates thinness and conventional beauty to health. As we know, health and beauty do not go hand in hand. Just because someone fits their exterior goals like weight and size does not mean that they are healthy. Because diet culture prioritizes image over wellness, many people who fall into this belief system won’t recognize something is wrong with their health until it’s too late because they are focused on one specific factor like weight rather than their general well-being.
How To Recognize Diet Culture?
Evidence of diet culture is everywhere. You are likely to see examples of diet culture in media through celebrities or influencers, where they promise quick fixes and highlight unrealistic body standards. Trends and challenges like “what I eat in a day” videos are designed to show off the restriction and self-control of the person posting. In reality, challenges like this can make it difficult to commit to a sustainable approach to eating because they encourage comparison, food guilt, and unrealistic expectations.
Besides social media, another place to recognize the impact of diet culture is advertising. Companies that promote weight loss products will use similar tactics like creating comparisons and fostering a sense of inadequacy to convince viewers to buy what they sell. For example, many weight loss gimmicks will promise results by showing a healthy, fit person with your ideal body type alongside their product. A lot of the time, this model never used what they sell, but already had that body before the advertisement.
Diet culture is relevant everywhere. Yes, we see examples in our media and advertising, but many more exist right under our noses. It can be found in casual conversations where people bond over following similar restrictive diets, in the workplace where co-workers judge each other’s meal choices, or even in our own thoughts when we label foods as ‘good’ or ‘bad.’
What Is The Impact of Diet Culture On Health?
Many people may mistakenly connect their adherence to diet culture as a health measure, but this is a harmful and outdated connection that can lead to worsening overall wellness instead of improving it. The main focus of diet culture is exterior appearances: weight and size. While these factors can contribute to your overall health evaluation, they are not the only indicators used to assess your well-being. The dangers of diet culture come from what is not focused on. By prioritizing image and size over other health markers, diet culture neglects the critical aspects of nourishment like nutrition, energy levels, and mental health.
The pressure of diet culture typically results in habits like restrictive eating, extreme dieting, and ill-fitting exercise routines. For example, a person restricting their nutrient intake should not engage in excessive vigorous physical activity like long gym sessions, ultra-heavy lifting, and intensive cardio. This is because the body is not receiving enough fuel to compensate. It can further contribute to feelings of inadequacy that stem from diet culture as the nutrient deficiency will limit daily abilities, alter thought patterns, and ultimately undermine both physical and mental well-being.
Where Did Diet Culture Come From?
The history of diet culture starts in the early 20th century, when social norms and cultural shifts started influencing a change in beauty standards and connotations about a healthy image. At this time, being thin was associated with wealth and status — especially for women. Maintaining a small and delicate frame was a symbol of self-control and class during the early 1900s, a stark comparison with earlier times in history where a more plump and full figure signaled health and fertility.
By the 1920’s, advertisements and products to aid in a woman’s weight loss journey began to hit the shelves and flew off just as quick. Once diet culture was made to be profitable, popularity spiked and carried through multiple generations to solidify it’s mark on society.
By the 1960’s, examples of diet culture were so prevalent in everyday life that invested companies started popularizing weight loss plans, effectively normalizing the idea of restrictive diets to the masses.
Ways to Cope With Diet Culture
Question social media portrayals of dieting
There are endless online portrayals of perfectly curated diets and healthy relationships with restrictive eating. Remember, just because something looks flawless doesn’t mean that it is. Focus on realistic goals with your food choices and prioritize health over unattainable physical standards. To have a productive relationship with whatever diet you commit to, it’s important to remember that everyone’s journey with food will present differently on their bodies, so it’s impossible to make a fair comparison between yourself and social media portrayals of diet culture.
Practice intuitive eating
The concept of intuitive eating is a way to practice tuning in with your body’s natural cues for hunger and fullness instead of relying on restrictive diets that have been influenced by media and advertising. When you reject societal expectations of eating and focus on instinctual eating based on physical hunger, you can build up a lasting and sustainable relationship with food. This is an eating practice that can help reshape how you think of nourishment, strengthening the connection between your inner voice and your body.
Reject labeling food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’
It’s completely normal to want to label a food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but what does that mean? When you eat a ‘bad’ food, are you suddenly going to get sick or face serious repercussions? Unless it’s an allergy, a food isn’t going to hurt you. There’s no reason to call a slice of cake or a bag of chips ‘bad’ just because you shouldn’t eat them all the time. ‘Good’ foods like greens can be just as harmful to your digestive system if eaten in high quantities. Instead of labeling your food, enjoy what you like in moderation and explore your other options!
Get guidance from a registered dietitian
Your body isn’t mass produced, it’s unique to you. Unlike online advertisements that must shrink complex ideas into a one-size-fits-all product, a registered dietitian can take an in-depth look into your health and wellness markers to build a unique nutrition and fitness plan for your specific goals. They can help you determine if you have any food sensitivities, nutritional imbalances, and keep you accountable to your meal plan.
Can Diet Culture Be Positive?
Even though the widespread effect of diet culture is typically viewed in a negative light, there are certain benefits of diet culture that may help build productive, life-long habits. For example, diet culture raises awareness about the composition of different foods and the dietary makeup of each consumed meal. Overall, this is a benefit because it helps teach the importance of fueling your body with the right nutrients. Moreover, diet culture (at its core) was meant to highlight certain healthy habits like staying hydrated and cutting out excess sugar or processed fats. These practices can indeed inspire healthier living and a more mindful relationship with food. However, it’s important to remember that these habits should be based in self-love and sustainability to have a long-term positive effect on both physical and mental health.
Avoid the Dangers of Diet Culture
Diet culture has had a strong hold on society for over a century, shifting the focus on food away from nourishment and toward physical image. While there may be some positive habits that come from the philosophies of diet culture, there are also some major drawbacks that should not be ignored. Diet culture puts a heavy emphasis on restriction, food guilt, and comparison to others, but there has been a recent push to silence these outdated beliefs. The best way to avoid the dangers of diet culture is to reframe your current relationship with mealtime, embracing variety and personal choices over the media’s influences.
