Is it “Healthy,” or is it Diet Culture?
When babies are born, doctors happily announce “You’ve got a healthy baby (insert assumed gender)!” Parents are thrilled when they give birth to happy, chubby babies and no one says “OMG, I hope I have a tiny baby!” 🤞). Yet when children get older (and often even before that happens), all these expectations are suddenly placed on them in order for them to qualify as “healthy.” At that point a person has to eat x number of fruits and vegetables, weigh a certain amount, be shaped a particular way, move their body “enough,” and of course have no medical problems. It’s a heavy burden to carry for someone who was once heralded for “thriving” when they were younger just by virtue of the fact that they were growing instead of stagnating in their development.
Why do we do this to ourselves and our community? Why are humans suddenly worth less based on arbitrary standards and required to spend more time at the gym than they spend with their loved ones? The answer? Diet culture. Wellness culture. Capitalism.
The entire idea of health has been shaped by people trying to make money off of making us feel like we don’t meet expectations. Think about it: When Special K said we could lose weight by eating their cereal instead of a meal, people everywhere flocked to the stores to buy a box. When wellness influencers said pomegranates and coconut water were “nature’s cereal,” suddenly fruit wasn’t “bad” or “too sugary” anymore and THAT was supposed to be our new “meal” of choice (despite literally being just fruit). Keto wasn’t the first and won’t be the last diet we’ll be told is the key to us finally dominating our bodies into submission, and as a society we’ve been - forgive the pun - eating this shit up. But is it a novel idea or just another in a long line of schemes to rake in the big bucks for those who are responsible for bringing it to the masses?
People get rich off of these ideas while the people being promised “health” get arguably less healthy. Obsessing about food isn’t health. Not listening to your body when it’s hungry isn’t virtuous OR healthy. Health includes mental health, and anything that takes over your life in order to maintain it is not working in favor of your mental health. The more we subscribe to these ideas that center thinness over overall well-being, the more actual health fades into the distance. We think we are exercising autonomy when making these choices, but are we actually? Or are we products of the craftiest marketing scheme in history?
When someone joins a cult, it can feel like a choice at first, but over time there is so much palpable manipulation happening that one could argue they were coerced. The same can be said for the cult of diet culture/wellness culture, so while I implore people to really consider what they’re signing up for, I never judge those who give it the old college try given the fact that we’ve been given so few choices if we want to subscribe to the only idea of “health” we’ve likely been presented with.
At the end of the day we each get to decide what health means for us and whether we want to participate. Despite the constant “well as long as it’s HEALTHY” diatribes (or “DIETribes,” if you will) being flung at us from every direction, we don’t owe a particular presentation or performance of health to anyone, and no one is wrong for defining health for themselves in a way that prioritizes what is important to them. That’s provided they are choosing for themselves and not trying to impose their opinions onto others.
No matter how many times a person cries “but it’s not HEALTHY” about someone’s weight or eating habits, it doesn’t make them right or entitled to that judgment. It just makes them humans under the influence of diet propaganda. Divesting from diet culture, unlike entering that world in the first place, which we all do the day we’re born (without our consent), is a choice. But it’s not an easy one. It takes a lot of tearing down and rebuilding the way we think and what content we choose to engage with…and a lot of time. It means questioning the information we’ve been given instead of taking it at face value just because it’s consistent with what a doctor, trainer, “health coach,” or Tik Tok star has insisted is the truth. A deep dive into the history of BMI will reveal that even the medical community gets this one wrong.
Instead of “detoxing” from sugar and other vilified food substances that our bodies actually need to survive, what about detoxing from people and platforms that encourage a disordered relationship with food and bodies? Instead of helping companies profit off your insecurities, what about paying yourself - with compassion and understanding? You don’t owe anyone your deprivation, and restricting yourself doesn’t actually make you healthier (or in most cases smaller long-term) anyway. Raking people (or yourself) over the coals for daring to live in bigger bodies instead of continuing to chase an unattainable beauty standard to their own detriment isn’t the answer. Letting people exist without the judgment that can only lead to worse health outcomes is.
Just a little food for thought.
