Diet culture is everywhere!
You cannot go anywhere or listen to anything without being reminded that diet culture is surrounding us everywhere. This happens because it is BIG business! Do you know how much is spent on the diet industry?… $70 billion!!! That number makes my head hurt just thinking about it. That’s just in one year too!
The diet industry is the most lucrative industry promising results to lose weight, feel great and be your best… which rarely is the case.
We buy into something that doesn’t really exist… losing weight will allow us to feel better about ourselves.
But what if weight loss, feeling better and in more control is not really possible with restrictive dieting habits?
For one, dieting is not supported by science. Our bodies are wired to survive! Therefore, when we engage in a restrictive eating pattern, our body thinks it’s going into starvation mode. Our body does not know the difference between intentional restriction and starvation. In order to protect ourselves, often our bodies never lose weight or plateau because our bodies are very well designed to keep us alive.
Do you ever question why we are so obsessed with dieting? Here are a few reasons:
To lose weight
To manage our health
To feel better
To feel more accepted
To feel more in control
To have more energy
Here’s the issue. None of the above listed are actual results of dieting!
These are PERCEIVED results of dieting!
Here’s what I mean by that. We often associate dieting with weight loss, improved health, thinking we will feel better or be more accepted by people around us, feeling in control of how and what we are eating and having more energy to put towards the meaningful things in our lives.
Here is what actually happens:
You have restricted food intake that leads you to bingeing
You are obsessed with food rules and expectations
Food becomes something to calculate, manage, observe etc.
You develop strict measures for attempting to eat the “good foods” and avoid the “bad foods”
You feel guilty for enjoying something that is labeled as a “bad food”
You are not able to sustain the program which leads to feeling as though you failed
You become obsessed with the numbers of weight loss
Health does not actually become addressed
You are more set up to engage in future disordered eating behaviors
The scale is a bigger enemy than before
This list is not to criticize but to bring to light the challenges of dieting that often go overlooked because we are in search of “better health” or “feeling better.”
Food does not have moral value of “good” or “bad” however we have been taught to believe that avocados are a “superfood” while cake and sweets are going to kill you. I don’t know about you but I do not want to live in a world where I cannot have any cake. Avocados are also one of my favorite foods but it is all about balance and moderation. We have to remove the shame from eating certain foods.
If we are restricting ourselves of calories, enjoyment or both we are not engaging in a healthy relationship with food.
Dieting does not work, does not last and ultimately does not provide the lasting results someone is looking for. Research has shown that dieting does not:
Improve health outcomes- people did not show significant changes in health measures after engaging in dieting behaviors.
Provide weight loss- ummm no. Over the time of a year 95% of people will regain the weight they lost and some will even gain more weight than where they began the diet.
Additionally, these are not usually felt experiences:
Feeling better- most people are starved, hungry and not feeling much better when their caloric needs are not met
To feel more accepted, yes, we live in a world that values thin bodies over larger bodies, however if you need to be thin to be accepted, you likely need to do some internal work on your worth as your worth does not come from your body. You may also need to prioritize relationships that are healthy vs. unhelpful ones.
To feel more in control, when dieting you are swinging back and forth between restriction and over indulgence and then guilt that leads to more restriction and then back to over indulgence or “breaking the rules.” Dieting is not sustainable because it is too extreme.
To have more energy, there are a lot of ways to increase energy without dieting such as managing caffeine intake, getting outside, moving your body, eating in a balanced way etc.
Overall, dieting often does not achieve the goals we are aiming for. Instead we are left with more food regulations, expectations and upset when it doesn’t work.
Here’s food for thought: It’s not you who failed but the diet!
Diets are not physiologically designed to work. That’s why they fail, fail again, come back with a different method and then fail again.
If you were to stop buying into diet culture then you would not have to feel so much guilt related to food and your body.
It’s time for anti dieting! Eat in peace and learn to find balance in your relationship with food.
Want to learn more! Head to https://www.eatingrecoverytherapy.com/free-resources to check our the FREE mini series to “Make Peace with Food”
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