Many people think that it is simply about being on a diet, however diet culture is a belief system that worships thinness and values a socially constructed ideal of beauty over health and well-being.
This is why diet culture has become so dangerous and is strongly implicated in the rise of eating disorders and body image issues.
Why is diet culture unhealthy?
Diet culture is a system of beliefs and values that:
- Worships thinness and values it over health and well-being. This means that you can spend your whole life thinking that you are not good enough because your body is not the ‘ideal’ shape, weight or size.
- Promotes diets and diet trends that claim to shrink or change your body. With diets failing around 95% of the time, many people can spend a huge portion of their lives on this mission to shrink or change their body.
- Promotes weight loss and body ideals; naturally this oppresses anyone that does not meet the ideals of health and beauty.
- Spreads a very rigid set of rules in line with the above beliefs such as earning your food, what foods are ‘good’, what foods are ‘bad’, and how you should spend your time and money in order to look a certain way.
Whether diet culture is selling slim, strong, toned or whatever ‘health’ or ‘beauty’ goal it promises, at the core lies a backward set of beliefs that:
1) Demonise and oppress those who don’t fit the ideals.
2) Leaves you struggling to meet impossible beauty standards.
3) Cultivates an unhealthy relationship with both food and body image.
4) Leaves you disconnected from your body’s unique wants and needs.
5) Is a multi-billion pound industry that thrives off us feeling unhappy with the way we look.
UK body image statistics
Research conducted by the Mental Health Foundation found that one in five UK adults feel shame, one in three feel anxious or depressed, and one in eight feel suicidal in relation to body image.
These statistics show just how prevalent negative body image is, which directly fuels diet culture. This is because the more vulnerable we are with how we are feeling about our bodies, the easier it is for diet culture to sell us their products and services.
How can we ditch diet culture?
Throughout our lives diet culture will have affected us all in some way, becoming increasingly difficult to avoid in our society. By recognising it as the multi-billion pound industry that it is and the unhappiness it causes, we can start to distance ourselves from it.
A starting point to ditching diet culture may be following non-diet influencers on social media, opting out of diet talk, starting an intuitive eating journey and working on how you feel about your body.
The truth is that changing your body will not cure negative body image, that is something we have to work on internally.
If you want to learn more about how to make peace with food and feel happier in your body, do not hesitate to reach out for support. Find the freedom you deserve and reclaim your life from diet culture!
