I woke up this morning, as I do on many mornings, not feeling too hot about my body–spending way too much time in front of the mirror picking apart every square inch of “imperfection,” every square inch of what makes me beautifully human.
Whenever I find this happening, I must actively work on reminding myself that the negative voice that tells me my body is not beautiful is not my own– this is one of the most important parts of my recovery. After deeply educating myself more on eating disorders as a part of my recovery, I have learned that this cruel voice that wants me to hate my body is the voice of diet culture, something that is extremely prevalent in our culture. Diet culture is actually so prevalent that we have adopted it as the truth. Personally, I have spent almost my entire life up until this point putting all of my time and energy in the pursuit of adhering to diet culture’s insane standards. This has all left me defeated and at a constant war with myself.
So, what exactly is diet culture?
Diet culture is a system of beliefs and social behaviors that values body weight above health and well-being.
Diet culture equates thinness with health and if you don’t meet this standard, you are led to believe that you are irreparably broken.
Diet culture tells us that we will achieve a higher status if we just “lose weight.”
Diet culture tells us we are at our healthiest when we’re pure muscle, skin & bones.
Diet culture takes away our womanhood.
Diet culture tells us we are “healthy” if we look a certain way, even if we have no energy to do anything besides workout and control our food.
Diet culture PRAISES our smallness.
Diet culture tells us to treat our body like a machine, to disconnect from our intuition.
Diet culture is RACIST and CLASSIST.
(could go on about this one forever)
Diet culture oppresses everyone who doesn’t match up it’s supposed picture of “health.”
Diet culture leaves us with no mental real-estate to pursue the things that were truly passionate about.
Diet culture tells us that it is not okay to be soft, not okay to be gentle.
Diet culture is non-acceptance.
Diet culture perpetuates perfectionism.
Diet culture DEMONIZES certain ways of eating while elevating others.
Diet culture imbues us with guilt and shame.
Diet culture controls us.
Diet culture profits off of us HATING ourselves.
Diet culture takes our time, $$, and energy.
Diet culture takes away our pleasure, purpose, and our POWER.
So F*CK you diet-culture. I choose NOT to entertain you today.
How can we move away from diet culture?
~clean up your social media. Instead of following account who make you feel like shit and share diet culture messages, follow more body-positive accounts. Follow the shit that inspires you—people who are real, people who are diverse.
~change your language around food,bodies, & health- is what I’m about to say to myself something I would say to a friend?
~educate yourself on this topic more!!
~give up your diets and adopt intuitive eating & intuitive movement.
~LET GO of diets and the unobtainable pursuit of weight loss. It is nottttt worth your well-being or happiness.
What diet culture doesn’t tell us? You can be healthy at ANY size if you are engaging in health-promoting behaviors and taking care of yourself. And our bodies will literally reject and fight us if we are not listening to their needs and giving them ample rest.
Challenging diet culture is self-love.
You deserve to live a life of freedom and freedom. You deserve to feel at home in that beautiful body of yours ❤
Nicole Zimmermann 