Diet Culture is Toxic

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Last updated on January 2nd, 2025 at 01:13 am

If you have ever tried to shrink your body, fat-shamed yourself or someone else, or restricted your food you are the victim of diet culture.

Diet culture is the systemic oppression of people in Western society fueled by the promotion of thin bodies and food restriction.

Did you know you can be a subscriber to diet culture without your consent? Hear me out. You might be a player in diet culture if:

  • You’re constantly trying to lose weight
  • You see thin bodies as being superior to fat bodies
  • You think a person with a thin body is more disciplined or worthy
  • You think people with thin bodies are healthier than people in fat bodies
  • You see yourself as more attractive when you are in a smaller body

These thoughts and actions might seem harmless, but they are in fact the building blocks that keep diet culture alive and thriving. They are also the thoughts that keep so many people in our society oppressed and suffering regardless of body size.

Let’s explore what diet culture is, where it comes from, and how to ditch diet culture for good.

What Is Diet Culture

Diet culture includes a set of rules and regulations about how a body should look and what a person should eat.

The five building blocks of diet culture include:

  1. A list of food rules
  2. Glorification of thinness
  3. Promoting exercise for permission to eat
  4. Fear of being fat
  5. Claims that smaller bodies lead to better health

If it comes with a set of rules, you can pretty much be sure it’s a part of diet culture.

infographic on diet culture examples

Diet culture didn’t emerge in isolation. Societal values that uphold diet culture include: 

  • Perfectionism
  • Patriarchy
  • Competitiveness
  • Healthism

Diet culture hides itself within highly valued ideals such as working hard, honoring the body, and sharing ideas of well-being. This makes it very difficult to break away from.

Most people that realize diets just aren’t working are met with the resistance of “you’re just not disciplined ore enough” or “you simply have no self control,” which often keeps them paralyzed and invested in diets.

History Of Diet Culture

Believe it or not, diet culture dates back to as early as 1830!

Sabrina Strings explores many of the racial roots of fatphobia and diet culture in her book “fearing the black body.” 

In the 18th Century race scientist at the height of race-making used certain traits and characteristics to justify the enslavement of Africans. These traits suggested that African Americans were:

  • Greedy
  • Illogical
  • Overindulgence
  • Irrational
  • Had zero control control of sensual appetites (overeating etc). 

In other words – a person of value is someone who is seen as being one who can control the appetite. 

Europeans were described as people who knew when to stop eating whereas African Americans were NOT!

Since the slave trade was a huge capitalist interest- it made sense to use any means necessary to show Americans that enslavement was justifiable. Differences in body types and relationships with food were an easy way to do this at the time.

These ideals for control and rationality extend into the early 20th century when the iconic beauty standard is seen as someone who is a Nordic American. She was a woman who was clearly: 

  • Irish/French/Scottish/British
  • Slender
  • Tall

Throughout Western history, the way someone ate was associated with health, godliness, and beauty.

In the current “health climate” we also see a rise in weight bias as a result of the BMI scale, which also has racist and capitalist roots.

infographic history of diet culture

What Is “Diet Talk”

Diet talk is the primary way strong bonds are created amongst people in diet culture. The community that comes from diet talk keeps us invested in the infrastructure of “dieting” and feeding the system that oppresses us.

Here are some examples of “diet talk” that unfortunately works to keep diet culture alive: 

  • Stating that leaner bodies are healthier bodies
  • Labeling foods as “good” and bad” and “off limits”
  •  Off-limit foods 
  • Glorifying toning up for “bikini season
  • Promoting calorie counting or restriction
  • Promoting exercise for weight reduction
  • Connecting with others through hating your body
  • A focus on “health” is the end all be all for living a good life.  An aspiration everyone with any self-worth MUST pursue. 

Diet Culture and Body Image

Diet culture helps to ensure that body image is bad for everyone.

Body image concerns that come with diet culture include feeling like:

  • You’re too fat
  • You should be afraid of being fat
  • Fat bodies are not as beautiful as thin bodies
  • Thin people are more successful than fat people
  • If you are thin, you need to be more toned
  • If you are thin, you need to make sure you do not age

It is not a coincidence that everyone has a body, and regardless of what that body looks like 99% of people in Western culltures are dissatisfied with it! This is a carefully constructed propaganda of diet culture.

journal prompts for diet culture

We don’t generally see fat bodies in the media unless the people in fat bodies are being depicted as: 

  • Villains
  • Lazy
  • Undesirable
  • Glutinous
  • Caretakers 
  • Greedy 

A person’s body image is distorted by the idea that the fatter they are the less moral value they have. And of course, society does not do anything to try to dismiss this idea. 

People reinforce the idea that only thin bodies are good bodies by blasting off unsolicited weight comments and promoting weight loss at all costs. 

People are not just born with the idea that fat is the worst thing that you can be!  These ideas are built into us from the time that we are babies! 

Diet Culture And Social Media

Diet culture is rampant in social media spaces. If you’re a person scrolling social media, its probably not uncommon that your feed is being flooded with weight loss, anti-aging, and exercise regimens.

Some common themes of diet culture in social media include:

  • Thin bodies being shown more frequently in feeds
  • Only perfect photos are being shared
  • People in fat bodies are afraid to show up in social media spaces
  • Our algorithm feeds us what we spend the most time viewing (which is often thin bodies)

Social media gives us the false perception that most people are living in thin bodies and that only people living in thin bodies are having fun and doing great things.

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Diet Culture and Eating Disorders

The pressure to maintain a certain body standard and create rules and regulations around food can lead to:

One of the most common contributors to disordered eating is dieting at an early age. Many may experience body dysmorphia as a direct result of the messaging about fat bodies being bad bodies in our culture. 

In my anorexia story, I took subtle messages of dieting to the extreme. I know i’m not alone in how diet messages at one point threatened my life

Diet Vs. Lifestyle Change

We’ve all heard it. “It’s not a diet. It’s a lifestyle change.”  But what does that really mean? Are lifestyle changes still a part of diet culture?

Characteristics of diets include: 

  • Rules and restrictions about food
  • A demand for an increase in exercise
  • A promise for better “health”
  • A transformation in the body and/or mind
  • Promises to reduce body size

Lifestyle changes are often associated with promises of: 

  • The exact same rules and regulations as diets. Except lifestyle changes claim to be sustainable for the rest of your life.

Lifestyle changes, just like diets are typically not sustainable.  This is a false narrative designed to convince us that if we “just work harder for a longer period of time” at our restrictive behavior we will succeed. 

Let’s face it. Lifestyle change became the trendy new term for diets when the entire world realized that diets don’t work.

Yet although people realized that diets did not produce the sustainable weight loss diet culture promised them for decades, we became desperate for another avenue to thinness, and the privilege it provided.

Most people will have weight loss rebound within a year of ending their diet.

Next time someone talks about “lifestyle changes” I want you to ask yourself: “Does it have rules?” If so- its a diet. Dieting sucks. and so do “lifestyle changes”.

Diet Culture is Toxic

The culture around diets has led to profound negative impacts for everyone. However, people in large bodies may have detrimental impacts from diet culture.

Toxic impacts of diet culture include:

  • Denial of jobs based on body size
  • Denying healthcare to people in larger bodies
  • Misdiagnosis of health concerns in people in large bodies
  • Limited access to public spaces for people in large bodies
  • Unearned rewards and incentives for people in small bodies
  • Disordered eating and eating disorder behaviors

Reject The Diet Mentality

Here are some tips to ditch diet culture: 

Every one of us has a role in dismantling diet culture and fatphobia.  

Not sure if you’re still dieting or mentally restricting your food? Take this food freedom quiz to find out! Learn to enjoy food by divesting from diet culture.

Everyone has a role in advocating to ditch diet culture. If you’re feeling overwhelmed in the journey to ditch diet culture, check out these body positive journal prompts to help support you in getting started. It’s also a good idea to keep a list of body positive affirmations on hand for when you are feeling overwhelmed.

What Is Diet Culture?

Diet culture values thinness above all else. It glorifies altering ones body weight, shape and size to fit its hearty demands and feed the system of oppression.

How Can I Ditch Diet Culture?

1. Call out fatphobia
2. Refuse weighing at doctors offices when not medically necessary
3. Stop labeling foods as good/bad/healthy/unhealthy
4. Recognize and eliminate food rules
5. Get rid of scales

Why Is Diet Culture Harmful?

1. It creates a system of oppression intended to serve capitalist, racist and patriarchal interests.
2. It keeps us chasing the “thin ideal” which is actually unattainable
3. It can lead to eating disorders/disordered eating
4. It keeps us from reaching our full potential by keeping us invested in the imperfections of our body

What Is Diet Talk?

1. Discussing good, bad, and off limits foods
2. A focus on ones body weigh/shape and size including complimenting weight loss or commenting on weight gain
3. Discussing ones dietary rituals as a measure of changing body weigh/shape/size

Shena Jaramillo. Registered Dietitian
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