Calling out Diet Culture

There are few things in the world that I truly despise; diet culture is one of those things. So what is diet culture? Diet culture worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue.

When I was in elementary school diet culture taught me that some foods were bad and some foods were good and that if I didn't see my ribs in the mirror, I was fat and to be fat was bad. In middle school, diet culture taught me that to be skinny was a good thing. In high school, diet culture taught me you had to work out even if you hated it. In college, diet culture taught me counting calories was a good habit to get into and working myself to the point of exhaustion in the gym meant I was doing it right.

In treatment, I see the effects of diet culture all the time. People have nearly died because of what diet culture says. Diet culture is society telling you you need to be under a certain weight, that fat is bad, that some foods are good and others are bad. It's weighing yourself regularly to make sure your weight doesn't go up or counting your calories in a day to make sure you don't go over a certain number. Diet culture has taken over people's lives and it is so sad to watch.

I fight diet culture every day. When I was told I had to gain weight in order to recover, I didn't want to because diet culture had taught me not to do that. Now I'm fully weight restored and I'm okay with the idea that I can continue to gain weight. When I went into treatment, I thought foods with high calories were bad and scary and would stay away from foods like pasta and cake. Now I have the understanding that all foods are good foods because no matter what they give your body energy. I used to equate the word fat with bad. Now I hate that I ever thought that. All bodies are beautiful and you can consider yourself fat and hold that with confidence.

The thing I hate most about diet culture is what it does to children. A lot of my beliefs that had to do with diet culture come from my childhood. Weight Watchers recently came out with an app for children and teens. This makes me so angry. This is teaching kids to diet, teaching them to restrict their food intake. There is an article on Weight Watchers on tips for teens to lose weight. This is ridiculous. It's so hard trying to break down that diet culture has done to society, especially children, and now Weight Watchers goes and makes an app for child weight loss. I can't stand companies like Weight Watchers.

Overall, I would kill diet culture in cold blood if I could.