As you scroll through social media, you’re probably seeing many conversations about food – maybe someone mentioning how “bad” or “unhealthy” certain items are, or how they need to “get in shape” for their (or a friend’s) wedding. These are all instances of diet talk, which is everywhere, seeping into every situation to the point that it is normalized. I was in line at a cash register today and saw that the person in front of me had a box of popsicles in his cart. The cashier smiled when she saw them and commented how she couldn’t eat them because they were “full of sugar” and “not good for you”. Seemingly casual remarks like these not only pass judgment on someone’s food choice but also perpetuate and normalize a much deeper issue: the diet mentality.
What we’ll cover:
Diet culture surrounds us, from casual conversations to social media to the advertisements we see. It promotes the notion that certain bodies and ways of eating are superior, thereby implying that if one does not have such a body or eat in such a manner, they must change themselves. Diet culture gives way to diet talk — those everyday comments about food and bodies, often said in search of validation or empathy, which seem harmless but are actually rooted in harmful beliefs. You’ve probably encountered diet talk today: someone may have mentioned how “guilty” they feel after eating dessert, or a friend might have praised themselves for skipping a meal to “save calories” for later.
Diet talk is a symptom of diet mentality, the belief that we need to control or restrict food to achieve health, happiness, or worthiness. This mentality reinforces the idea that our value is tied to what or how we eat, which leads to us labeling foods as “good” or “bad,” and assigning moral judgment to our food choices. Rejecting the diet mentality, the first principle of intuitive eating, means recognizing that these judgments are unhelpful, and worse, deeply harmful. Diet culture undermines our relationship with food, our bodies, and ultimately, our sense of self-worth. It normalizes the use of an arbitrary external guide (diet culture) to a process that should be internally motivated (selecting what, when, and how much to eat).
The problem with dieting is that when people don’t lose weight, they often blame themselves and think that if they had had more willpower to stick to the diet, it would have worked. The issue isn’t the person though, it’s the diet. Research shows that diets don’t work, and 90-97% of people who lose weight through dieting will regain it back within 2-5 years. It is very rare for people to lose weight and keep it off for any significant amount of time. And in the period where they’re able to keep it off, it usually comes at a cost, such as feeling stressed around food, not feeling comfortable going out to eat, checking menus ahead of time for calorie information, and exercising to compensate for something eaten.
Not only do diets not work, but they might also be worse for your health. There’s a lot of research that shows the harm caused by dieting. It is associated with increased risks for overeating and other disordered eating behaviors, higher food and body preoccupation, lower self-esteem, and increased risks for developing eating disorders. Ironically for an activity promoted for the pursuit of weight loss, dieting is also associated with long-term weight gain and weight cycling.
Weight cycling refers to the repeated cycles of intentional weight loss followed by unintentional weight gain. If you or someone you know has tried their hardest at a diet and lost some weight, only for it to plateau or (?)go back up, you are not alone. Two-thirds of people who diet regain the weight, and often, they regain more weight than they originally lost, meaning they end up at a higher weight than when they started. This increased weight, often attributed to one’s lack of willpower rather than our body’s internal survival mechanisms, often jump-starts another diet in an attempt to shed the weight, and the cycle continues. This cycle of losing and gaining weight, or weight cycling, comes with pretty significant health effects: increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic inflammation, and certain cancers. Weight cycling is actually worse than staying at the weight you started at!
Now, you might be wondering: Isn’t being at a higher weight really bad for our health? While it is true that there are correlations between being at a higher body weight and certain health conditions, we cannot know for sure if being at a higher body weight causes these health conditions, or if people who have these health conditions also happen to exist in a higher body weight. And this is not to mention the potential impacts of weight stigma, which is a conversation for another day. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to be healthy and be at a higher weight. Anyone, regardless of their body weight, can engage in health-promoting behaviors (such as eating fruits and vegetables, engaging in physical activity, or managing stress levels) that we know have a positive impact on their health outcomes. Just as we can’t judge a book by its cover, we can’t determine someone’s health based on their weight and body size.
Now that we know a bit more about the dark side of dieting, consider rejecting the diet mentality and divorcing yourself from all the diet talks. You can free yourself from the harmful messages of diet culture. Are there things you enjoy eating but are not allowing yourself to eat? Are you converting every bite of food into calories to burn or minutes on the treadmill? Rejecting the diet mentality is about giving yourself unconditional permission to eat without guilt or shame, or ‘making up for it’ later.
This doesn’t mean ignoring health – it means realizing that health is about so much more than rigid rules about food. Take some time and ask yourself: what does health mean to you? Maybe there’s a health condition that runs in your family that you want to avoid. Or maybe you just want to climb the stairs at the subway stations without getting winded. As mentioned above, you can pursue health without being on a diet.
So, how exactly does one reject the diet mentality? The next time you’re in line at the grocery store, think about whether someone else’s food choices should really be anyone’s business but their own. Should they have to feel guilty for simply wanting to have a popsicle? No – and neither should you.
Rejecting the diet mentality starts with not making judgements about others’ food choices, and extends to setting boundaries with those who comment on your food choices (even yourself). By setting these boundaries, pushing back on diet talk, and embracing food as a source of pleasure and nourishment, you can begin to mend the relationship with your body and trust the signals it sends you. This is one of the first steps to eating intuitively. It starts with letting go of the rules and the shame.
One of the first steps toward rejecting the diet mentality is setting boundaries around diet talk. You don’t have to engage in conversations that make you or others feel guilty about food, exercise, and your body. You can also begin to challenge your own thoughts and judgments about food and body size.
This is easier said than done, as diet talk is so prevalent in our culture. This is because it’s a manifestation of another societal plague – anti-fat bias, or the discrimination against fat bodies (another rabbit hole we can dive down on another day). In a world seemingly set up to dehumanize fat bodies and steer us towards a pursuit of thinness, what can we do? Body-positive advocate Vinny Welsby suggests a 3-step model: Remove, Reduce, Protect. We can take control of our surroundings by first trying to remove the most triggering points of anti-fat bias in our lives. If we can’t do that, then we can attempt to reduce exposure to diet culture by spending less time around people or in situations perpetuating anti-fat bias, and creating safer spaces free from food shaming. If we can’t reduce the exposure either, we can protect ourselves by engaging in self-care. Restorative self-care practices can also be used alongside the remove & reduce practices above.
Here are some strategies for setting boundaries:
Food is meant to nourish us, and it’s also meant to bring pleasure. People have a point when they say desserts go into your heart instead of your stomach! Too often, diet culture makes us feel guilty for eating something we enjoy, as if pleasure should be off-limits. Thinking about that person in line at the grocery store, why shouldn’t he enjoy his popsicles? Why should anyone have to feel shame about what they choose to eat?
The truth is, eating for pleasure is a completely valid part of a healthy relationship with food. You’re allowed to like what you’re eating. Intuitive eating encourages us to listen to our body’s hunger cues, honor cravings, and eat in a way that feels satisfying. It’s about reconnecting with the joy of eating without obsessing over whether a particular food is “good” or “bad.” Food can be both nourishing and enjoyable.
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This article was written by Sumera Subzwari, MS – an MEd-RDN student at Teachers College, Columbia University studying Community Nutrition – and reviewed by Jasmine Hormati, MS, RD, CDN, a registered dietitian and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. She specializes in eating disorder recovery, healing from chronic dieting, and body image work using a weight-inclusive and intuitive eating approach. Jasmine earned her Bachelors of Science in Conservation and Resource Studies form University of California, Berkeley and her Master of Science in Nutrition and Public Health from Teachers College, Columbia University.
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