Last year, a young woman from an impoverished country stayed with my husband and me for several weeks. She had no idea the impact she’d have on my relationship with food—as someone who’d struggled with disordered eating for decades as a result of lifelong exposure to diet culture. But nonetheless, God used her to heal my mind and set me free.
For the sake of her privacy, I’ll call this young woman Sally.
When Sally arrived, her taste buds were accustomed to just a few whole foods and no spices; sparse staples that had nourished and sustained her daily for her entire life.
(Her first visit to our local grocery store overwhelmed her. She’d never seen so much food and had to lie down in a quiet room afterwards in order to settle her mind.)
I observed how she made nourishing meals from the simplest of foods.
She thoroughly enjoyed sitting down to eat each meal—and stopped when full.
Her motto was, “A full belly is a happy heart!” . . .just the opposite of my lifelong preoccupation with food restrictions and weight loss. (I was put on my first weight loss diet at age six by a loving mother who herself was a victim of diet culture. She was just one of multitudes of parents who passed down generational dieting.)
Dieting/diet culture, according to the Oxford dictionary, is “restricting oneself to small amounts or special kinds of food in order to lose weight.” Dieting is a normal way many people interact with food in developed countries.
In the twenty-first century, many “non-diets” have been rebranded for modern times: lifestyle changes, weight loss challenges, intermittent fasts, holistic fasts, detoxes, juice cleanses, boot camps, and the like.
Diet culture indoctrinates many of us, starting at a young age, to believe we don’t know what to eat, how much to eat, or how much to weigh. Therefore, we’ve been conditioned to accept that we can’t be trusted around food; there’s something inherently wrong with us--we’re fundamentally flawed.
Unfortunately, weight management from an outside source: a parent, spouse, coach, trainer, dietitian, physician, social media influencer, or peer group becomes normalized. . . and it actually decreases our ability to self-regulate hunger. Instead of listening to our bodies, we are trained to follow food rules.
Over time, we lose critical thinking skills. We don’t know how to think for ourselves, and we become disconnected from our body’s innate cues. We learn to habitually ignore hunger--and fullness. Therefore, we learn to depend on others to dictate food requirements: what, when, and how much to eat; and even how much to weigh. Today, there are even apps that tell us when and how much to eat. Technology has replaced hunger and fullness cues.
This lack of autonomy runs deep: we use phrases such as, “I’m allowed to. . .or I’m not supposed to” when referring to food choices and how much to weigh.
Shutting down independent thinking is a telltale sign of diet culture; and there’s little to no room for nuance.
Mealtimes become battlegrounds of our minds as we silently vilify foods by calculating calories, amounts, nutrients, or macros. This food noise distracts from being fully present and over time, one becomes emotionally detached.
Tight boundaries are instilled—foods that one is allowed to- or not allowed to eat.
One step over the boundary line spells disaster, creating a subconscious urgency to rapidly devour large quantities of food before restricting again.
Because it’s the “last meal” before another period of self-starvation, food restriction fuels unrestrained binge eating until stuffed and uncomfortably bloated.
When one spirals out of control, it’s viewed as dangerously deviant behavior. If the diet is not followed perfectly, it’s labeled as “overeating/binge eating” or “falling off the wagon.” Any decline in health and well-being is blamed on lack of willpower and noncompliance. Therefore, staying on track becomes the full-time focus that consumes all mental energy.
The worst part is the dieter believes they’re an undisciplined moral failure. They (and others) view any compulsive eating behavior as a gluttonous and immoral character flaw; or there’s something pathologically wrong with them. . . when in reality, it’s an innate survival mechanism to live. . .instigated by chronic undereating!
It makes perfect sense why children exposed to diet culture are 242 times more likely to develop eating disorders than Type 2 diabetes. (Unapologetic Eating by Melissa Rumsey)
But unfortunately, dieting and resulting maladaptive eating behaviors are normalized and socially acceptable—and even promoted--in this country.
And these disordered eating patterns can quickly spiral into full blown eating disorders, which have the second highest mortality rate of any mental illness—next to opioid addiction deaths. Someone dies as a direct result of an eating disorder every fifty-two minutes. (Eating Disorder Coalition)
Sally had never been exposed to diet culture. She had never owned a scale, and her life didn’t revolve around what she ate or weighed on any given day.
To her, food was a treasured gift. . . and she was grateful for, and cherished each bite of nourishment. She also stopped eating when full. Many times, she left a relatively hefty amount of food on her plate for another meal—not because of a food rule—but because of an innate desire not to feel uncomfortable. Dieting hadn’t robbed her of the natural ability to self-regulate food.
Perhaps it’s time to recognize the role diet culture has played in the so-called obesity epidemic in America.
And maybe it’s time to adopt the gratefulness mindset of “full bellies and happy hearts” instead of chronic restricting and undereating. . .which eventually fuels rebound bingeing followed by tighter restricting.
I know this gratefulness mindset has rescued me. It has stopped the food noise and helped me naturally self-regulate food—a God-given gift I was given at birth—but hijacked at age six.
May we all become set free from the dieting trap that has taken over our natural, God-given abilities to self-regulate food.
May we all enjoy the pleasure of eating without guilt. . . and celebrate each meal with happy hearts!
A few telltale signs of diet culture influence:
· Using phrases such as: “I’m not allowed to” or “I’m not supposed to” when referring to food choices
· Lack of natural ability to self-regulate hunger/fullness cues
· Detailed tracking of every morsel of food
· Feeling guilty, fearful, and demoralized when not obeying food rules
· Feeling shame when not losing weight or maintaining weight loss; scales dictate emotions
· Publicly sharing before/after pictures
· Publicly sharing “what I eat in a day” pictures/videos
· Critiquing and comparing what others eat
· Daily weight checking/mirror checking
· Complimenting weight loss, adulation/celebrity hero-worship of weight loss success stories
· Commenting/gossiping about someone’s weight gain (or fat shaming them)
· Life, including social media postings, evolves around food, fitness, food talk, food amounts, food tracking, numbers on the scale, weight loss challenges, resets, boot camps, mirrors, selfies, workouts, body size
· Condescending disapproval of what others eat or don’t eat; labeling others’ food as good, bad, poisonous
Emily Boller, artist, mother, and author of Starved to Obesity, is certified in whole plant nutrition and on a mission to combine practical, no-nonsense and cost-effective tips—with easy to understand science—in order to help anyone escape the addictive grip of the Standard American Diet. And now, she’s on a mission to bring awareness to the suffocating and potentially deadly trap of diet culture as well.