What is diet-culture? And Why Do You Need To Rebel Against it?

I talk a lot about ‘Diet Culture’ in my courses, books and programmes and encourage people to rebel against it, in order to make peace with food and their bodies.

What does the term ‘diet culture’ mean?

Diet Culture is a system of beliefs held by society about food, weight, body sizes and shapes and health. These beliefs are reinforced by industries that directly profit from them, such as the dieting, fitness, beauty (cosmetic surgery) and fashion (shapewear) industries. The media and clinical research which is often funded by weight loss companies, and so these also perpetuate the myths and misconceptions found in diet culture.    

Diet culture looks like fixating on body size, weight and shape, and making it an individual’s mission to change their weight, size and shape, often at all costs in order to look more like society’s thin ideal (often this drains us financially, time, socially and mentally and ends up harming our physical health over the long term). In diet culture, our food choices are shamed and terms such as ‘junk’, ‘clean’ and ‘guilt-free’ are used to infer a moral value. There are often food rules, restricted groups or items, and often exercise is also used as an extension of the diet, in an attempt to manipulate a calories in/out equitation or alter our metabolism. Here, the joy of movement of the purpose of joy itself, becomes lost.

Something to be aware of is that Diet culture can be blatantly obvious, as well as being sneaky and covert. It can look like the promotion of diet plans, but it can also go by terms like ‘wellness’ and ‘lifestyle changes’ to appeal to a younger audience. The term ‘diet’ itself is being used less and less by diet companies, as we can see with companies like Weight Watchers (WW) changing their name to mean ‘Wellness That Works’ while still centring their programme around counting points (food rules) and and weigh-ins (body shaming and reshaping).

Why do I need to rebel against diet culture?

Well, simply put, you absolutely cannot make peace with food if you're still stuck in the dieting mentality. You need to begin the process of break out of it now in order to move forward and recover from a lifetime of dieting, because while you're restricting or forbidding certain foods, you'll always experience cravings and the urge to eat more than what your body needs, perhaps even struggling with binge eating episodes.

Not only this, but it’s been shown in numerous clinic studies, that dieting, including calorie restriction does not work for weight loss or health in the long term. 

There’s now loads of published research, podcasts and books authored by registered dietitians and nutritionists on the topic of why diets do not work and actually backfire, resulting in weight gain, poorer physical and mental health and stunted metabolism. There's even research to show that dieting and diet culture acts as a precursor for full blown eating disorders. I've linked to some of these below the video as well as a handy resources guide. 

How do I rebel against diet-culture?

Here are some tips for how you can begin to undo years of diet culture influence:

•Read up on the growing body of anti-diet research put together by registered dietitians

•Look at the media you consume: does it make you feel bad about yourself? do you compare your body to the bodies you see in magazines an on TV?

•Ditch the tools of dieting. Do you calorie count or track macros, points or syns? Do you log your exercise and food? Delete the apps, chuck out the diet books and meal plans.

•Examine you own dieting history - if any of your past diets had really 'worked’ for the long term, you wouldn't be looking for another diet or starting over. (Remember: you haven't failed at dieting, dieting has failed you!)

•Vow to stop dieting right now, and do not restrict food intake or types, as this exacerbates binge eating behaviours.