Diet culture, its friends, and the unwanted party inside your head

From the moment we open our eyes in the morning to the moment we go to sleep at night, diet culture and its friends; self-critic, perfectionism, and my personal favorite guest, not enough, start a party of negativity in our heads. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself, what is the first thing I do in the morning? For most of us, it is probably procrastinating getting out of bed by scrolling through any variant of social media. For others it may be turning on the TV while enjoying their morning coffee or tea. For some, it may be rushing out the door to commute to work while they blast the radio. If any part of this morning routine speaks to you, then your party of negativity brought to you by diet culture and its besties starts bright and early.

 How so, you might ask. Well here’s the thing, diet culture and its posse are really great at starting the party of negativity before we even know it. Whenever we scroll through social media, watch TV, listen to the radio, or stand in line at a store and read magazine headlines, we are consumed by messages of diet culture and it’s friends. Diet culture tells us what, when, and how much we “should” be eating and how to move our bodies. Diet culture is the culprit behind the messages that uphold thinness as healthy and good and attack larger bodies as unhealthy and bad. 

With the help of its friend not enough, diet culture conditions us to see ourselves and our bodies as not good enough, not thin enough, and not worthy enough so that we will buy into yet another “scientifically supported lifestyle change” for “fixing” ourselves. When diet culture and not enough work together, we open the door to another party guest, self-critic. Every social media, TV, and radio ad about weight loss convinces us to hate our bodies and believe that we are constantly in need of being changed.  This fuels what is called the scarcity mentality, or the feeling that what we have to offer is never enough and we should always be striving for more. Sound familiar?

 **Knock Knock**

 Oh look, another party guest! You guessed it, perfectionism. When diet culture, not enough, and self-critic all work together, the illusion of perfectionism is created. Messages given that with enough willpower and discipline your “perfect body" can be achieved are not only unrealistic and arbitrary, but also full of individual shame and blame when real women and men can’t live up to the photo shopped models that are presented to us. Diet culture and its supporters strategically leave out one extremely important message. A life of dieting leaves you empty of belonging, connection, and creativity, and full of shame, guilt, and confusion. Diet culture works inherently against empowerment and in fact, thrives off of dis-empowering every host of the party.

 When diet culture and its friends work together to construct how we think about ourselves, our bodies, and even others, we can end up at risk for developing disordered eating, body image issues, food and weight preoccupation, or an eating disorder. These struggles can make us feel like we are fighting a daily internal war with yet another unwelcome party guest. A party guest that negatively impacts the way we think, act, and feel about and towards our bodies and self. As our internal war intensifies we may feel more and more powerless in reclaiming our minds, our bodies, and our wellness.

 So how does empowerment help to heal?  Empowerment put simply, is a way for us to move beyond diet culture by finding our voice and using it to kick diet culture and all of its friends out of the negativity party going on in our heads. Make it your goal to take small steps in building empowerment towards your healing process by talking back to the standards of diet culture. For example, try not to purchase magazines or other goods that support diet culture or body criticism or if you find yourself having critical self-talk about your body take a moment to brainstorm all of your positive qualities, accomplishments, and values.

Remember you have a purpose that is far more important and meaningful than your weight, shape and size!