I have written about what the diet culture is and where you find it – Both the obvious and the hidden places. But it is one thing to know what the culture of diet is and another to understand the damage of the nutrition culture and how it affects us all. And I really mean “all of us”, because even if you never have a diet, you still swim in the waters of nutrition.
How Food culture hurts diets
Our diet culture feeds on the idea that we will be healthier, happier and more worthy if we lose weightAnd that the next diet (or other method from trying to lose weight) is just the ticket. When we buy these lies, many things can happen:
- Lose Weight and feel the glow of social acceptance – praise from friends, family, colleagues, healthcare providers – followed by the fear of losing this acceptance if you recover the weight that leaves you You work desperately to maintain your loss, even if it gets harder and harder, and you feel more hungry and hungry.
- You lose weight, feel the glow of social acceptance, but then start resetting the weight. This can happen if you had a diet, underwent weight loss surgery, or took weight loss. You begin to sink into feelings of failure and may begin to avoid certain people or situations to try to hide your “failure” the best you can. If you were too vocal for the “success” of losing your weight when you lose and even maintain briefly, the desire to stick your head in the sand can be even more acute.
- You try to lose weight, but the scale does not drive more than a few pounds – or maybe the number on the scale even rises. You beat yourself to be weak because you are unable to succeed in this very important thing. You may be worried that you will die early, unmarried. All the things you expected to do until you lose weight – this trip to Hawaii, asking for an increase, hugging your hands and feet in the summer, dating – stay on the back burners.
In all three of these scenarios, We spend a significant amount of time, money and energy to pursue weight loss. Time, money and energy we could spend much more important and fulfill things. The things that bring us joy and can actually contribute to better health.
If I could only tell you one thing, it would be this: It is not worth more, or worth less, based on how you eat or what you weigh.
How Food culture hurts non -diets
Even if you have never sought weight loss, diet culture can hurt you. Why? Because even if you are not particularly trapped in diet and nutrition culture, the chances are good that at least some people close and dear are.
I had customers who finally decided to start escaping from diet culture only because they saw how their obsession was, restrictive nutrition behaviors (often accompanied by body shame) affecting their relationships with their partners and causing them to isolate themselves socially, who influenced friendships.
Also, they could not be fully present when they were with the people who cared for them, because all they could think about was his food, his food or avoiding him.
What if you have never adopted a diet and exercise plan to lose weight? Well, If you have ever sought a rigid plan in pursuit of “wellness” or “optimal health” – “Clean Eath” comes to mind – then you have been actively involved in nutrition culture.
As the “diet” became more and more than a dirty word, More diets rotate as “health”, By wording of how you will probably lose weight along the way it comes there somewhere. This began with the body’s positivity movement and continues with the rotation of the weight loss industry in new GLP-1 weight loss medications and admitting that diets never worked.
Remember how weight watchers were redefined as WW several years ago, with relevant “wellness” and “raising” messages, despite the fact that their ads still promote weight loss? This did not work very well for them (even attempted to offer GLP-1s, as the CEO apologized to national television for the company’s role in the yo-yo diet, but that did not save them from bankruptcy).
Finally, if you buy the diet messages that are thinner = better, then you may be afraid of future weight capability profitand can also have biased attitudes on people in higher weight bodies.
What can you do?
As I often say to my customers, once you really see the diet culture for what it is, you can’t find it. And this is frustrating, because once you start doing your own personal work, you want to wipe your diet culture away everywhere.
Also provocative is the fact that his work to unfold yourself from the culture of diet never ends, because you could finally see the water, but you are still swimming in it. With the current attention of the media to weight loss medicines, it may feel that these waters of nutrition cultivation are stirred.
And here is another harsh truth: as long as each of us believes we do not affect advertising and marketing messages (other people are, just not us), we are affected. The research carries this and, let’s admit it, advertisers will spend so much money on advertising if they didn’t work? Just know that Nutrition cultivation messages are in all kinds of adsSo if you are exposed to these ads, you continue to be exposed and possibly influenced by nutrition culture.
This, the bad news. The good news is that these seven steps will help you become more resistant to nutrition culture:
- Learn and exercise intuitive consumption.
- Clean the supply of social media. Stop accounts promoting restriction or unrealistic body ideals.
- Start paying attention to where you hear the diet. Once you are tuned to it, it can be amazing how widespread it is.
- Set boundaries around the diet.
- Be curious – and soft challenge – your beliefs about food and body. It may be useful to seek professional help or read books such as “More than a body“From Lindsay and Lexie Kite.
- Choose forms of motion you like – not just those that “burn more calories”.
- When you have a “bad body day”, try to direct your anger or disappointment to the system (nutrition culture and unrealistic/inaccurate appearance and ideal health) and not for yourself and your body).
- Practical concentration. Remember, we all swim in the waters of food cultivation, as or not.
Hi, I am Carrie dennett; Mph, rdn, a weight-inclusive Registered Dietitian, Nutrition Therapist and body image consultant. I help adults of all ages, shapes, sizes and sexes who want to escape from disturbed food or chronic diet, Learn how to Manage IBS symptoms with food, or Improve their dietary and lifestyle habits to help manage A current health concern or just support them overall health and prosperity. This post is only for information purposes and is not a personalized diet or medical advice.
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