It is HARD to quit diet culture.

I know that I can sit over here in my desk chair and type pretty words about how lovely it is to not stress about dieting or exercise, and reassure you that you are beautiful because you exist. Maybe that sounds wonderful and you feel good reading that, but then you try to go about your life with that in mind, and it just doesn’t work. You feel scared and worried and like quitting diets is harder than dieting. Why is it so hard to leave diet culture behind?

1. 1. We’ve been lied to. Yep, I said it. That whole thing about how you’ll die if you don’t lose weight? Not true. All that “research” that shows a correlation between higher weight and various health issues? Correlation does NOT equal causation, plus, the studies are set up looking for that correlation in the first place. Higher weight absolutely does not mean that you are not or cannot be healthy. The whole premise of Health At Every Size is that we can pursue and achieve health without even talking about weight. Even knowing this, it is ingrained into us to believe that bodies of certain sizes carry a death sentence that can be avoided, and we want to do everything we can to avoid that if this is the thought pattern to which we subscribe.
   2. Social approval. How many times have you been the recipient of or witness to compliments about losing weight, choosing certain foods, or someone exercising frequently? Maybe you’ve noticed that these are always tied to some positive moral, such as, “You’re so [good/dedicated/amazing/organized/other].” On the flip side, have you noticed that people often undermine their own choices that don’t align with what is considered correct? Think about hearing people make statements like, “I’m going to be bad and order dessert,” “I’m going to have pasta but I shouldn’t,” or, “I need to work out so I can burn off the calories from the latte I drank.” It is extremely clear that dieting behaviors are acceptable and non-dieting behaviors are not. Forgoing that social approval is a struggle, and understandably so: none of us learned diet culture in a vacuum, and none of us will leave diet culture in a vacuum. It will always be around us until society changes, and it is important to understand that this is a real, genuine barrier that we need to be cognizant of in order to overcome.
   3. Community. This goes hand-in-hand with that social approval piece – if we all subscribe to diet culture, we all have something to talk to each other about. Turn around in line at Subway and tell the person behind you that you like real mayo instead of light when you’re worried they overheard your order and might be judging you, and they’ll most likely chuckle and join in with the diet talk. We literally don’t even have to know people to be able to engage in diet culture perpetuation with them, because diet culture is SO pervasive. If you leave diet culture, you leave this community, too.
   4. Control. Dieting feels a heck of a lot like direct power over our own lives and everything that happens. We commonly believe that people who diet and exercise frequently have their lives “together,” somehow more so than the rest of us. We think that those folks who plan meals and bring the little boxes with organized, home-prepped meals must have their kids, significant others, work, home life, housework, and other activities all so organized and running so smoothly that it affords them the time and energy to plan meals and exercise every day. And maybe they do. I’m sure there are a few of those folks who do. But for the rest of them, and most of the rest of us, life is messy. Things happen that we don’t plan for. Something went wrong and we didn’t have time to get to the gym or prep all those meals we found on Pinterest. Maybe nothing went wrong, and spending all afternoon reading a book just felt good. Maybe a family member had a health issue and you’re determined to not take the same path. Maybe someone who did everything “right” died of a heart attack anyway. There are all kinds of reasons we turn to our food and exercise for control, but ultimately, it doesn’t give us the actual, direct power over our lives that we believe it does.
   5. Diet culture is aspirational. What I mean by this is, the obsessive eating and exercise aspects of diet culture give us a feeling that we’re working toward something. We set weight goals, and we believe that once we meet those, the world will open up for us and we will have so many doors open. What if diet culture actually works opposite of that? What if those doors are already open, regardless of your body size, and all you need to do is walk through them? What if the thing that is stopping you from your aspirations is actually fear of doing them, and you just think you have to be in a smaller body before you can do those things? Diet culture keeps us small. We live tiny, enclosed lives when so much of our energy is spent controlling our food and exercise. Imagine everything we could do if we left diet culture behind and went for that job, wrote that book, took that trip, volunteered for that organization, set out on our dreams, weight be damned? Diet culture feels like we’re working toward something big, but it’s all just a sham to keep us from living up to our full potential and have real, lasting impact in our lives and on the world.

Maybe you’ve tried to leave diet culture before. Maybe you’re just starting to walk out of the fog of diet culture. It’s okay if you’re struggling; getting out of diet culture is a major challenge. You’re here, reading this – and you can do this.

 

 

 

 

 

I didn’t drink coffee until I was in college. I didn’t like the way it tasted when I took sips from my dad’s mug, and he drank it straight black.

When I was in college, I discovered that I liked coffee when it was espresso mixed with lots of milk and caramel and whipped cream. A friend gave me the succulent concoction when I stopped to chat with her at her on-campus coffee shop job one day, and I loved it. I started to drink coffee this way occasionally as a treat.

This treat became a little more frequent when I was in grad school, because I was more regularly using it for caffeine. By the time I graduated, I was drinking several lusciously sweet lattes weekly.

As I started my first job, I scaled back my coffee intake. Sure, we had a coffee shop at our facility that made lattes, but I was a freshly-minted dietitian. I believed I had an example to set, and, to me, that included moderation in caffeine and calorie-laden coffee drinks.

Eventually, things got busy. For a while, I was able to power through. I loved when people asked me how I managed everything, assuming I was constantly wired on caffeine, and I got to tell them, “Nope, I just make it all happen!”

This didn’t last for too long, though. About a year and half in, I was swamped at work and drinking lattes daily. The baristas at the coffee shop even knew my drink and called it a “Jamie Special” (a white mocha with caramel drizzle and whipped cream, for the record). I would try to cut back, but I enjoyed my sweet drinks and the jolt of caffeine in the morning. I was spending quite a lot of money on “froo-froo” coffee weekly, but I was so reluctant to label myself a “coffee drinker” and buy a home coffee maker that I just budgeted more money. When my bank account simply couldn’t take it anymore, I broke down and bought a coffee maker.

That’s when I started digging into why I had been so adamant that I was NOT a coffee drinker. What was it that stopped me from admitting it and making a switch before? There were two reasons, both of which were 100% influenced by diet culture:

1. Moralizing – I attached moral value to caffeine. I believed that I was “good” because I was not dependent on caffeine, and didn’t drink it often. I thought I was superwoman for having a busy life and not relying on caffeine. Now I realize – so what? As long as I am fine with the role caffeine has in my own life, it doesn’t matter if or how much I have. The same goes for anyone else: we all get to choose if and how much caffeine we want. The degree to which we choose to include caffeine or not does not make anyone a better or worse person.
2. Restricting – I like my coffee creamy. I like my coffee sweet. Those are two facts about me. I worried for a long time that if I had a coffee maker in my home, I would drink so much coffee just the way I like it that my body would get larger and it would be a problem. But wait – I’m the same person who is steadfastly against the entire concept of ANYONE’s body being a problem, and I ferociously promote the non-diet concept of eliminating restriction from our interactions with food. It didn’t quite line up. So, here I am, drinking daily coffee just the way I like it (currently, that’s 16oz coffee w/ 2 packets of hot chocolate mix and a splash of half-and-half). And you know what? I don’t feel out-of-control around my coffee anymore.

It turns out, diet culture can impact us in ways that are deeper than we realize and we can unknowingly hold on to diet-y beliefs for a long time. Take the time to look into reasons you avoid certain foods. Check in with yourself, honestly, and see whether these reasons are actually serving you, or if diet culture is lying to you about what you “should” eat. You might find a solution that’s even better than you thought it would be – like coffee at 10% the cost!

Understanding the concept of diet culture is imperative to even beginning to grasp Intuitive Eating and Health At Every Size, the founding philosophies of Wonderfully Well.

What even is diet culture?

Think about it this way:

• If you’ve ever felt that you need to justify a “bad” food choice, that’s diet culture.
• If you’ve ever believed that you earned dessert because you exercised, that’s diet culture.
• If you’ve ever skipped an event you otherwise wanted to attend because there was nothing there that fit your meal plan, that’s diet culture.
• If you’ve ever had an attitude or mood change based on a change in the number on the scale, the size of your clothing, or body measurements, that’s diet culture.
• If you’ve ever drank water when you’re hungry to avoid eating food, that’s diet culture.
• If you’ve ever put off doing any sort of activity until you weigh X pounds, that’s diet culture.
• If you’ve ever had a “cheat day,” that’s diet culture.
• If you’ve ever replaced a food you truly love with one that is lower in calories, that’s diet culture.

It is clear that diet culture hijacks our lives in ways that we don’t even recognize because we are constantly getting messages from diet culture that we “should” be doing all these things in order to be in smaller, conventionally attractive bodies that will supposedly open the entire world for us so we can “truly, finally” live. This narrative that we need to constantly be working to make our bodies fit size and beauty expectations is damaging and prevents us from living in the biggest and fullest ways we can.

One of the very first steps in recognizing and choosing to step out of diet culture. Start being a critical observant about how you and those around you use and talk about food. Recognize if you’re choosing foods you don’t want because they’re “good,” or if a friend comments that they need to exercise in order to work off a food.

Increasing your awareness is critical, and you can start noticing right away! In this early stage, do your best to have grace for yourself – we’re all immersed in diet culture constantly, and it’s understandable that it has affected our lives and actions. The more you observe how diet culture makes choices for you, though, the more easily you can step back into your autonomy!