Rejecting Diet Culture
Diet culture tells you that if you follow a certain diet perfectly then you will be more healthy and weight loss will follow. What happens when it doesn’t work? Will you lame yourself? Trying to eat perfectly erodes you of joy, pleasure, and freedom in how you eat, think, and feel. Rejecting Diet Culture is an important step towards promoting body positivity and self-love. Diet Culture is a system of beliefs that promotes weight loss as the ultimate goal for achieving happiness and health. It often leads to harmful practices such as restrictive eating, over-exercising, and body shaming. By rejecting Diet Culture, we can focus on nourishing our bodies with healthy foods and engaging in physical activities that bring us joy, rather than punishing ourselves for our body size. We can also learn to appreciate and celebrate the diversity of body shapes and sizes, rather than conforming to narrow beauty standards.
Why diet culture says not to listen to your hunger cues
Have you ever worried about “can I eat this or not?” Have you ever watched the clock to know if you are “allowed” to eat? When you’ve struggled with an eating disorder or disordered eating you know how obsessive and all consuming these thoughts become. Diet culture often advises against listening to your hunger cues and portion control. However, this can lead to ignoring your body’s natural signals of hunger and fullness, which can cause feelings to deprive your body of the energy, fuel, an nutrients that it needs. Some diets may advise against listening to your hunger cues because they often promote strict calorie counting and portion control. However, this can lead to ignoring your body's natural signals of hunger and fullness, which can cause feelings of deprivation. It's important to find a balance between mindful eating and following a structured diet plan, and to prioritize listening to your body's needs. By relearning to trust your own bodies' intuition and hunger cues, your obsessive thoughts and anxiety surrounding food will decrease.
Lies that diet culture leads you to believe
Diet culture can be pervasive, and it often promotes lies that can be harmful to both our physical and mental health. One of the most common lies is that diet culture tells us is that thinness equals health. However, this is not necessarily true, as people of all sizes can be healthy or unhealthy. Another lie is that certain foods are "good" or "bad," which can lead to disordered eating patterns and guilt around food. Diet culture also leads us to believe that exercise is punishment for our weight or for what we ate. Exercise is NOT punishment. Exercise helps you to celebrate your body and how it can move. Additionally, diet culture often suggests that weight loss is the key to happiness, success, and worthiness, which can be damaging to our self-esteem and body image. It's important to recognize these lies and work to reject them in favor of a more balanced and compassionate approach to food and our bodies.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE PERFECT! Challenging diet culture and their beliefs about perfectionism in food. By challenging and rejecting diet culture it can help you to let go of the guilt and shame that has held you hostage for years.
The therapists at Mind & Strength Counseling of Utah are here to help you find your true holistic approach to mental health and exercise. Check us out and make an appointment today!
