F*ck Diet Culture

As you may or may not know, this week is National Eating Disorder Awareness week. This is particularly important cause for me, not only because I am eating disorder survivor myself, but because I have yet to meet a client, friend or family member who hasn’t at some point struggled with their relationship with food.

Here are some things I know to be true:

Food brings up feelings: Food can be joyous. It can create connection and shared experience. Food can bring on nostalgia and comfort.  It can be a means to share culture.  But it can also bring on big feelings that aren’t as warm and fuzzy.  Food can bring regret, or shame, or guilt. 

Food has no moral value: There is no food that is “bad”.  Sure, there are foods that are more nutrient dense, but when we label foods as good/bad, clean/dirty, healthy/unhealthy, we subconsciously create an entire narrative around food that will ultimately dictate our feelings.  If we have deemed food as “bad”, when we choose salad over cake, we feel great.  But when we eat a donut, we suddenly are faced with feelings of shame.  

The language around food matters:  Even more subtly, we have all sorts of language that echoes the idea that there is a moral value attached to food.  Try eradicating language that powers this incorrect (and unhelpful) narrative and replace them with language that feels better.  

Examples of dangerous language:

• “Calories don’t count on my birthday (or vacation, or weekends)”

• “Let’s be naughty today (and eat ‘bad’ food)”

• “Let’s have a cheat day”

• “On Monday, I will be good”

Examples of helpful language:

• “Today I am choosing a food that makes me happy”

• “My worth has nothing to do with the food choices I make”

• “All food is good food”

• “Today I will eat cake, but tomorrow I might crave a salad”

Letting go of “shoulds” is a huge step in freedom: “Shoulds” lead to shame.  If you notice yourself “shoulding” all over the place, STOP.  Literally stop.  Letting go of food rules (no carbs on weekends, only one helping of dinner, eating grapes rather than cake) is a huge leap into finding freedom from food.

Diets DO NOT work: Across all studies, consensus is that over 95% of people gain the weight they lost due to dieting within five years, and often gain more.  Think about it rationally, if there was any diet that worked, we would all just do it and that would be that. 

Intuitive eating is the way to go: Intuitive eating is listening to the unique needs of your own body and making food choices based on that alone.  There are no rules other than to trust you own body and mind to recognize your needs.

Finding freedom is hard:  Straight up, we live in a culture that is relentlessly pushing diet culture.  So if you have been dieting your whole life, or even parts of it, letting all of that go and swapping it for a healthy relationship with food might actually be hard. Remind yourself that finding food freedom is hard, but it is not harder than living your life at the mercy of food.