Diet Culture and How it Impacts You
It is no secret that having a certain body type is considered more attractive. While the specific body type can change for different groups or societies, many people strive to look like celebrities with certain features or a certain BMI. It is not harmful to want to eat healthier and exercise. These are great things to do, not only for your physical body but for your brain as well. So what is the harm of diet culture?
To answer this we need to understand what diet culture truly is. Diet culture is the immense push for marketing short-term diets that advertise your dream body. They will use celebrities or even doctors to promote products or certain ways of eating that are often unhealthy and lack a scientific basis. This is incredibly effective. As humans, we want to feel accepted by others and our society. Advertisers will play on this and say if you do their diet or use their exercise program you will become the person you want to be and be loved the way you crave.
Let’s break down some main problems with diet culture.
Diet culture often markets “fad” diets
A “fad” diet is a diet that is usually popular for a short amount of time and usually has not been tested on a population for safety or for the effectiveness it claims to have. Something like the Atkins diet, or the Keto diet are good examples of diets that became very popular, and slowly died out over time. These diets often have quick timelines where they may be effective at shedding some weight that helps push them to stardom.
The problem is they often boast results that are only short-term and once you cease doing the diet it is very likely to gain the weight back, if not more. This is because the human body was designed to survive over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution; meaning that our bodies had to be able to withstand periods of starvation. When you implement restrictive diets, your body will lose weight, but eventually, your metabolism will adjust, meaning you will be able to maintain your weight on fewer calories than before the diet. This is a super cool mechanism of the body that has saved countless lives over human history but is not conducive to losing weight through incredibly restrictive means and keeping it off for good.
Diet culture is made from an industry that is trying to profit from you
In 2023, an estimated $160 billion was spent promoting the weight loss industry in the US (Rogers Behavioral Health). There is a lot of money in these programs. They are often marketed by famous people who have more money and time to have personalized meal plans and exercise training to attain their bodies. Using this idealized body, celebrities can then market products that “helped them” get to where they are. These claims are usually false and it is used to make money for their brands or other companies that pay them a lot of money to market products to their fans.
If at the end of the day, the goals of these celebrities or diet brands are to make money, they will do that in any way possible. This includes making false claims, changing the lighting in before and after photos, and minimizing the damage that the diet can have long term.
The promises diet culture sells you can be completely unattainable or dangerous
Every body is different. As a human species, we have a wealth of genetic differences from person to person. This is awesome because it means we all get to look different from one another, but also genetic variance can help with things like immunity to disease, differentiation in thoughts and behavior, and general diversity in the human population. Being different as people helps us as a species. Unfortunately, marketing thinness as THE standard of beauty is unrealistic and unattainable for many people. Some people are more naturally thin, gain muscle quicker, or have certain features of their body that others do not have. Body type is dependent on genetics, hormones, behavior, environment, and general accessibility to healthy food and free time (Cleveland Clinic). Being a healthy weight is great and it means something different for each person, but when we are marketed to over and over again that being thin is a marker of health, it is simply a lie. Often these diets are very rule-based and incredibly restrictive. These lend themselves well to the development of a restrictive eating disorder that can be lifelong and very difficult to treat.
Being on a restrictive diet for months or years on end can cause exhaustion, hair loss, constipation, loss of bone density, low immunity to illness (becoming easily sick and sick for a longer amount of time), and death if the diet is continued for long amounts of time, even if you are not underweight. These diets can even cause diseases like cancer, diabetes, or heart disease (Science Direct).
It has never been about health
Often these companies will market these diets using health. But being visually leaner, which is the goal of most, if not all, of these diets, is not necessarily healthier. As discussed previously, there can be numerous harmful effects of restrictive eating. Combined with the profit, it is more profitable for these companies to keep selling you things. So if they sell you something and you were to be your ideal weight forever, that doesn’t make them as much money, and with everything in life, there are always fluctuations. If they can sell you the message that you can always be skinnier then it is easier to continue to pick apart your appearance even when you are the weight you thought would make you happy.
What can you do?
Losing weight can be done healthily. Cutting out entire food groups will likely not help unless you have an allergy or digestive problem where it is necessary to do so. If not, please enjoy the food that you can. It is such a privilege to have access to so many different types of food, that was not a reality until very recently. Doing manageable portion control, trying to eat more fruits and vegetables, and doing some form of exercise that is manageable and fun to do will be much more effective long term. This can look like adding some fruit to your breakfast or adding frozen vegetables to a rice or pasta dish. Fruits and veggies are less calorically dense than other foods, meaning you can eat more and feel more full by adding instead of restricting.
If the exercise you do is torture to you, if you find it grueling and unenjoyable, it will likely always be that way. Finding ways to implement more fun forms of exercise will make it easier to work out. This can mean taking your dog on an extra walk once a week in a new location or joining a local recreational sports team. These can also be great ways of building community and friendship with other people who like the same forms of exercise as you. Losing weight does not have to be impossible and you do not need to buy special equipment, teas, or pills. You do not have to cut out every dessert or large meal with family. Restriction is impossible to manage for an entire life and can be incredibly damaging, not only to your body but to your psyche as well. If you or someone you know is struggling with a restrictive diet, there are resources out there. Please see below:
Helpline for eating disorders call 1(888)-357-7767 or visit their website:
https://anad.org/get-help/eating-disorders-helpline/
To get screened for and find treatment in your area:
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/get-help/
List of resources and organizations that can help with disordered eating:
https://renfrewcenter.com/learning-resources-for-eating-disorders-and-recovery/
Citations
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/why-people-diet-lose-weight-and-gain-it-all-back
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240585722300116X#:~:text=Insufficient
