Diet Culture: What it is, how to spot it, and what to do about it 

Weight watchers, South Beach, Keto, Paleo, Cabbage soup, Juicing…and many more are examples of diets, or eating rules that millions of people try to follow in an attempt to lose weight, or get “healthy”.  If you’ve never been on a diet yourself, I would guess that someone you know has; or at the least, has followed a variation of one. 

In an article written for Global News, author Jane Gerster stated that “weight loss is a multibillion-dollar industry, per 2017 figures from market research company IBISWorld. That same year, a nationwide poll from Insights West found that nearly half of Canadians had tried a diet sometime the year prior in a specific bid to lose weight”. The poll also showed that women and young adults between the ages of 18 and 35 were most likely to have tried multiple diets.

Seeing as dieting is so common, one might wonder why? Why is it that so many people feel the desire, or pressure to change how they eat and behave in order to change how they look? 

My guess is Diet Culture. 

What is diet culture?

Christy Harrison, registered dietitian, intuitive eating counselor, author, and podcast host personally defines diet culture as a system of beliefs that: 

• Worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue, which means you can spend your whole life thinking you’re irreparably broken just because you don’t look like the impossibly thin “ideal.” 
• Promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher status, which means you feel compelled to spend a massive amount of time, energy, and money trying to shrink your body, even though the research is very clear that almost no one can sustain intentional weight loss for more than a few years. 
• Demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others, which means you’re forced to be hyper-vigilant about your eating, ashamed of making certain food choices, and distracted from your pleasure, your purpose, and your power. 
• Oppresses people who don’t match up with its supposed picture of “health,” which disproportionately harms women, femmes, trans folks, people in larger bodies, people of color, and people with disabilities, damaging both their mental and physical health. “ 

To read more from Christy on this topic, click here:

As academic definitions are hard to come across, in 2020, two University of Melbourne researchers set out to understand the meaning of diet culture by surveying individuals living in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.  The survey asked respondents about their experiences of diet culture, what they believe it meant, and what sources of power underlie it. 

Results noted that diet culture refers to a set of ever-changing myths about food and bodies, promoting the idea that one’s body weight automatically equals health and that foods can be simplistically categorized as ‘good’ and ‘bad’. It also comprises a moral hierarchy of bodies that preferences the thin ideal while masking a fear of fat.

How to Spot Diet Culture 

Now that we’ve looked at some definitions of diet culture, here are some of the many ways it can show up: 

• Limiting or avoiding entire categories of foods because they are “bad” 
• Exercising to either “burn off” something you ate, or to earn a “treat” 
• Feeling unworthy or unattractive based on your body size alone 
• Assuming that everything bad that happens to you is because of your size 
• Suppressing your appetite and not honouring your body’s hunger cues 
• Participating in fat shaming or body shaming talk 
• Believing that weight loss is as simple as “eat less and move more” 
• Treating others differently based on their body size 
• Only ever seeing one body type portrayed in most media as “fit” “perfect” or “beautiful” 
• Feeling like a good or bad person based on your food choices alone 
• Praising weight loss on others with no background on what may have been going on behind the scenes. 
• Believing that one can’t be suffering from an eating disorder if they live in a larger body. 

What you can you do about diet culture?

Being aware and noticing both the obvious and more sneaky ways that diet culture is popping up around you can be a helpful first step.  You have the choice and ability to challenge diet culture pressures and lead a life that feels good and is sustainable long term. 

Other ideas: 

• Clean up your feed: review all the media you’re consuming- magazines, websites, social media pages etc.. and remove anything that perpetuates diet culture views or makes you feel negatively about yourself. 

• Try focusing on what your body provides for you on a daily basis, rather than how you want it to look.  Appreciate your here-and-now body. Click here to learn more helpful tips on how to improve your body image.

• Practice self-compassion and be kind to yourself. If your family members or close friends were to list what they love about you, what would they say? Focus on these qualities more often. 

If you’ve followed many diets in your lifetime, it can definitely feel daunting to turn away from them and go against the grain of social norms. Working with an intuitive eating dietitian who specializes in the relationship between food and body image can help you discover effective ways to live your best life in a way that doesn’t feel restrictive. 

Learn more about dieting myths here.

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