What is Diet Culture and Why is it Fucked?
Diet culture is the obsession with making smaller bodies - even at the expense of mental and physical wellbeing. It is a pervasive thought telling us we need to spend endless time and energy focusing on how what we eat has a direct result to our size. It can lead to anything from an unhealthy relationship with food to full-blown eating disorders and harmful physical ramifications. It is a tool of oppression for people of color, women, and disabled people by equating “good” vs “bad” bodies with “good” or “bad” humans.
It uses rules and restrictions to strip us of our enjoyment of food, food culture, and our long term health. It equates food with guilt, chores, and punishment rather than love, community, and fuel.
That’s f*cked.
First, dieting doesn’t work. Ever. In fact, they increase your risk of heart failure and premature death. Second, weight and health are not synonymous. Let me say it again - weight and health are not synonymous. Many of you are probably rolling your eyes and equating my claim to “feminist BS.” That’s fair - everything we’ve been taught is that healthy = skinny and skinny = healthy. The thing is, our understanding of “obesity” is flawed at best.
While obesity may occur simultaneously with other things like heart disease (or what public health practitioners call a comorbidity), we actually can’t connect a persons size to their health (correlation doesn’t equal causation). It all goes back to BMI. Something that was invented two hundred years ago using all white participants as a justification for eugenics. F*cked, right?
There are likely all kinds of other factors that influence weight - genetics, environment, trauma, medication… the list goes on. Our obsession with these numbers has taught us that how much we weigh is the ultimate pillar of health. But what about our mental wellbeing? Our social support? What about our exposure to the outdoors, stress levels, or intellectual wellness?
A skinny patient with a low BMI is at risk for under-diagnosis because they are perceived by their doctors as ‘healthy.’ A fat patient with a higher BMI is at risk for misdiagnosis because their doctors assume their fatness is to blame for their problems.
So here’s the gist: fatphobia is more dangerous than fatness, and we all have internalized fatphobia and diet culture that we need to unlearn.
Because fatness is treated as the scapegoat for all disease, becoming fat or gaining just a mere five pounds feels like the worst possible outcome. We obsess over our size and how we look - opting out of social events and comfort foods for the sake of staying as thin as possible.
I don’t know about you, but I went on my first diet when I was probably 11 years old. I started eating on smaller plates and tried to skip meals when I could. Up until the time I was 22 I hardly remember a time when I wasn’t on a diet or thinking about going on a diet. My relationship with food was one of pain, struggle, and never being “good enough” and never working “hard enough.” It’s been a focus of conversation with other women, a reason to not wear my favorite outfits, and to feel like I was not worthy of love and affection.
I always felt that I was close enough to being skinny that I just needed to work a little bit harder. It consumed my thoughts day and night. I would be eating one meal and planning my next. Then I would mess up and eat a “bad” food, resulting in a lot of crying and binge-eating and pain. I was constantly beating myself up and taking WAY too much time away from having fun.
It’s okay to struggle with body image. We’ve been fed distinct images of what bodies should look like. But it’s time to break up with diet culture.
Since the breakup I’ve had more free time, tried new foods from cultures all over the world, and have started to feel comfortable in my own skin. I’ve spent less time obsessing over what people think of my body and more about how to support fat people in their quest for liberation.
It’s going to be a difficult breakup. It’s going to take time, and you might hook up once or twice after its over - that’s okay. All that matters is you keep fighting.
Resources for Further Learning:
https://www.sonyareneetaylor.com/the-body-is-not-an-apology
https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/everything-you-know-about-obesity-is-wrong/
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/893006538
https://www.northwestern.edu/wellness/8-dimensions/
https://msmagazine.com/2019/10/18/the-feminist-history-of-fat-liberation/