What is "diet culture", and why is it problematic?

Diet culture refers to a set of beliefs and practices that prioritize weight loss and thinness as the ultimate markers of health and wellness. While the pursuit of healthy eating habits and exercise can be positive, diet culture can be harmful for several reasons:
-It promotes weight stigma and discrimination: Diet culture perpetuates the belief that being thin is superior to being larger, leading to negative attitudes and discrimination towards people who don’t fit the thin ideal.
-It can lead to disordered eating: Diet culture encourages restrictive eating patterns like weighing/measuring food, controlling portion sizes, hyper-focusing on consuming or eliminating specific foods, “earning” meals, and glorifying drastic weight changes, which can lead to disordered eating habits such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder.
-It reinforces harmful gender and racial stereotypes: Diet culture often targets women and reinforces the idea that their worth is tied to their appearance, perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes. This is even more harmful in communities of color, where Black women are especially scrutinized by their weight and food choices, without taking into account the systemic disparities in access to food, nutritional education, and healthcare.
-It promotes unsustainable and unhealthy practices: Diet culture often promotes quick-fix solutions and extreme measures to achieve weight loss, such as fad diets, detoxes, and over-exercising. These practices are often unsustainable and can harm both physical and mental health in the long term.
So this begs the question: Can a dietary protocol like Autoimmune Paleo (AIP) be facilitated with an anti-diet culture approach?
YES! By prioritizing nutrient-density of foods, lifestyle changes, stress management, and sleep rather than over-emphasizing restriction, the AIP can be an incredibly freeing way to develop a healthier relationship with food while managing autoimmune symptoms. If you’re curious about how this approach could help you, reach out to schedule a free Soulful Food Strategy Session with me. You don’t have to do this alone. 💜