Diet culture is everywhere. Here’s how to fight it

Everywhere you turn, diet culture looms, dictating what, when, and how much you should eat. But it's time to challenge this pervasive narrative. Discover strategies to resist its influence and foster a healthier relationship with food and body.

In 2021, half of all New Year’s resolutions in the U.S. were based on fitness, and nearly half were weight loss.

Diet culture is that collective set of social expectations that tells us there is only one way to be, eat, and look

• Thinness and health are not the same, fatness does not equate to being unhealthy

Know that BMI is BS

The body mass index (BMI) was first used in the 19th century to assess weight distribution across populations

• It was never meant to measure individual health and was based purely on studies of white men
• There’s no evidence that these studies were representative in terms of race, age, gender, or any of the things that can lead to differences in outcomes
• Despite its many flaws, the BMI is our go-to measure of health for all genders and body types
• People still struggle to write off the BMI because of how often it is invoked to prove that fatness leads to illness

Heal your relationship with food through intuitive eating

We’ve all got an antenna that tunes into our body’s hunger messages, but diet culture blocks that signal and makes it difficult to know what we need

• Repairing that wiring starts with making sure you have access to food – and that’s not a given for everyone
• From there, it’s all about ditching diet rules, honoring your hunger and giving yourself unconditional permission to eat

Recognize that health and beauty standards are not absolute

Moving your body and eating nutrient-rich food are always a good idea, but it’s important to understand how much we’re motivated by our culturally accepted aesthetics

• Diet culture purports that every fat person is a thin person waiting to be released and that we should fear fatness
• We’re all susceptible to the social norms that shape our perceptions of what’s desirable
• In a society where thinness equals beauty, this can sound like a really subversive idea
• The next time you look in the mirror and feel dissatisfied that you’re not pretty or thin enough, maybe ask yourself: Says who?

Befriend your body

A positive relationship with your body requires the same amount of work as any other relationship in your life: Take time to listen, pay attention to its needs, and provide it with compassion

• Prioritize rest and listen to your body’s cues
• Remember how your body shows up for you

Identify and interrogate diet culture messaging

Think about how diet culture makes you feel about yourself

• What external factors are impacting your feelings? What choice do I have in terms of how much I want to respond to them?
• How other people treat us
• Do not fall for value judgments of food or bodies

Be intentional with the language you use and the commentary you’ll accept

Avoid body talk as best you can

• If you want to compliment someone, focus on something that they’ve done intentionally
• Another option is to practice “the sacred silence,” or saying nothing at all
• You don’t have to learn to talk about bodies in an amazing, positive way

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