While maintaining a healthy weight is an important part of overall health, a narrow focus on weight or appearance can increase the risk of disordered eating, such as binge eating, overexercise, or using diet pills, and may harm both physical and mental health.
Whether it’s an ad on social media promoting a new diet or a celebrity being applauded for dramatic weight loss, our culture often seems obsessed with weight and weight loss.
While maintaining a healthy weight is an important part of overall health, a narrow focus on weight or appearance can increase the risk of disordered eating, such as binge eating, overexercise, or using diet pills, and may harm both physical and mental health.
Learn more about diet culture, how it may affect your mental and physical health, and what steps you can take to combat its effects.
What Is Diet Culture?
Diet culture refers to beliefs and practices that prioritize weight loss and thinness as the main signs of health.
The National Alliance of Eating Disorders says diet culture encompasses the collective beliefs and practices that promote the pursuit of weight loss and thinness as the ultimate markers of health and well-being. It often emphasizes the importance of a person’s appearance or a particular number on the scale, values only one body type, and may promote restrictive eating or a quick fix to achieve an ideal weight.
Diet culture is founded on several unhealthy beliefs, including:
- Thin people are healthier and more attractive than people who aren’t thin.
- A higher weight or larger body is unhealthy and caused by poor lifestyle choices or lack of discipline.
- Engaging in restrictive diets or excessive exercise are necessary to achieve the perceived ideal body.
How Can Diet Culture Affect You?
While it’s true that healthy
weight loss can be connected to better health outcomes, many beliefs associated with diet culture overlook how complex and diverse our bodies are and disregard other factors that play a role in our overall health.
When we focus too much on thinness or appearance, it can affect our physical and mental health in several ways, including:
- Low self-esteem and negative body image
- Increased anxiety
- Preoccupation with food (restricting it, obsessing over it, etc.)
- Increased risk for blood pressure issues and cardiovascular problems due to weight cycling (losing and gaining weight repeatedly)
- Decreased bone density and muscle mass
- Increased risk for disordered eating patterns or eating disorders
How Can I Combat the Effects of Diet Culture?
- Talk to your health care provider. Whenever you have questions or concerns related to your health, it’s always a good idea to talk to your health care provider. If you’re thinking about trying a new supplement or you’re unsure about a good plan for diet or exercise, talk to your provider. Social media influencers, celebrities, and other internet personalities usually don’t have the expertise or training to back up the health advice they’re giving or the products they’re promoting.
- Set health-focused goals.
Many people set goals related to their appearance or shape. Consider setting more health-related goals. For example, you could set a goal to improve your strength, run a 5K, or lower your blood pressure numbers. - Review your social media feeds. Unfollow any wellness or fitness influencers who make you feel ashamed of your own body or promote unrealistic body standards.
- Examine your food choices. Instead of choosing or eliminating foods based on trying to be thinner or smaller, focus on choosing foods that fuel your brain, help your body build muscle, or make you feel good. Often, diet culture pushes you to eliminate entire groups of foods or pushes diet foods such as sugar-free treats or chocolate-covered protein bars. Instead, try giving your body whole foods like fruits and vegetables, lean sources of protein, nuts, and seeds, and find out how your body feels. Do you feel energized by them? Has your mood changed?
- Appreciate your body for what it can do. Diet culture tries to convince us that only thin bodies are worth celebrating. Instead of constantly comparing yourself to others or focusing entirely on your body’s physical appearance, try to appreciate its abilities and what it enables you to do.
- Access available resources. If you have questions about your weight or your relationship with food or your body, talk to your health care provider as a first step. In addition, check out the resources below to find the additional support you need.
Resources
- TRICARE offers several resources designed to support your wellness journey. Find information about preventive care, weight management, and more. In addition, TRICARE covers eating disorder treatment. Talk to your health care provider if you need support with managing an eating disorder.
- Military OneSource offers health and wellness coaching sessions for Service members and their immediate families, focusing on topics like eating better, exercise, stress management, and more.
- The Department of Veterans Affairs offers a whole health approach to health care to help you design a personalized wellness plan that addresses many factors that affect your health, such as your relationships, sleep, mental health, and more. VA also has several nutrition-related services, including access to registered dietitian nutritionists, cookbooks and recipes, and more.
- The Office on Women’s Health provides several resources related to nutrition, healthy eating, and healthy weight, designed with women and their nutritional needs in mind.
Remember, health doesn’t weigh a certain amount or look a certain way. Shift your mindset to embrace the many factors that play a role and reach out for support if you need it.