Diet culture. You might have heard this new term being thrown around a bit lately. But what on earth is it, and is it a harmless craze, or something much more?

What is diet culture?

Diet culture is the widespread set of beliefs that equate thinness with health and self-worth. It is the notion that a person is morally better if their body shape or size fits within a certain ideal. 1

It is linked with the belief that we can control our bodies with food, and that certain foods and ways of eating are better than others, often because of their perceived impact on body weight or health. 2, 3

Diet culture normalises the idea that foods can be good or bad, and by extension, that a person must be good or bad if they eat certain foods or engage in certain behaviours. 4 It encourages the setting of rules around food and eating that dictate what, how or when we should eat, regardless of our own internal cues, and implies a degree of personal failing when these often-unsustainable rules aren’t followed perfectly. 5

It doesn’t necessarily mean being on a diet. 6 Rather, it is the culture of linking food to weight loss or gain, or making assumptions about a person’s health or wellbeing based on their body size. Even if we don’t realise it, we are surrounded by diet culture all the time. 2

Examples of diet culture

Diet culture can be sneaky. While we might immediately think of it as something like fad diets, or weight loss challenges (which it is), sometimes it is more subtle.

Here are some examples of how diet culture can sneak into our lives:

  • Foods labelled with ‘guilt free’
  • Turning down a food offered because ‘I’m trying to be good’
  • Promoting ‘sugar free’ sweets to kids as healthier
  • Food containers with ‘portion control’ in the marketing
  • Setting New Years’ resolutions based on body weight, diet, or exercise goals
  • Skipping snacks even though you’re hungry
  • Promoting an exercise regime as giving you permission to have that extra glass of wine (or any other food or drink)
  • ‘It’s not a diet it’s a way of life’ – yet this ‘way of life’ inflicts a handful (or more) of rules onto your food choices
  • Comments on your own or another person’s body shape or size (including kids!) – both positive or negative
  • Labelling foods as good/bad or healthy/unhealthy
  • Anything that promotes health by cutting out foods or food groups
  • Congratulating weight loss
  • Avoiding social events to avoid eating
  • ‘Wellness’ diets and their spin-offs: clean eating, detoxes/cleanses, fasting, elimination diets, Whole30, Noom, etc.
  • Watching what you eat
  • Cheat days
  • Watches and devices that track your activity levels and food intake
  • Doing laps of the living room to reach a certain number of steps in the day
  • Choosing smaller portions regardless of how hungry you are
  • Eating differently when other people are around
  • Including a measuring tape in pictures of food
  • Calorie labelling on foods
  • Assuming dietitians are the food police (hint: we’re really not!)

Ultimately, diet culture is anything at all that equates eating and exercise with morals, or body weight, or the pursuit of ‘health’, ‘wellness’, or thinness.

But if it’s all in the name of health, surely it can’t be a bad thing…right?

While most of the people promoting it have our best interests at heart, diet culture can be incredibly harmful. At best, it leads to confusion around what healthy eating really is, making it harder to make healthier choices for our own bodies. 7

More than that, it creates stress and anxiety around food and eating and can impact on mental health. 8 For many people, diet culture can create feelings of guilt and shame around food choices, erodes our ability to trust our own bodies, and over time can damage self-esteem and sense of self-worth, and increase body dissatisfaction. 4

The promotion of diet culture can lead to disordered eating behaviours9 that are often celebrated but are also very often harmful for both physical and mental health. 10

And for susceptible people, diet culture can lead to the development of eating disorders, which are serious and potentially life-threatening mental health issues.

Some studies have shown that repeated weight cycling, where weight is repeatedly lost and regained, can have worse outcomes for health long term compared to people who do not diet. 11

Diet culture sets people up to feel like failures

Diet culture is rooted in the belief that we can control our bodies through food. However, there is no evidence yet that dieting for weight loss specifically is sustainable in the long term. In fact, of the few weight loss studies with long term follow up (meaning they check back a few years later to see whether people are keeping the weight off), almost none of them demonstrate that the diet was effective for weight loss in the long term. 12-14

Diet culture tells us to blame the person and assume that this is because they did not stick to the diet. However, reviews of the long-term effectiveness of dieting find that very few diets are sustainable in the long term, 15 and that dieting itself is associated with weight gain over time. 12

Diet culture doesn’t tell you this: your body doesn’t know you have a goal weight. There is no mechanism for it to check in and say: “Hey brain, is this a diet or a famine? Should I worry or are we okay?”

When we restrict our food intake, the body starts making lots of physiological changes to increase the chances of surviving what it thinks is a famine and get ready for the next one just in case. 13 This is done by reducing energy expenditure and increasing appetite. 13 Instead of seeing this as a great adaptation to help us survive tough times, diet culture tells us that we have failed for not controlling the size of our bodies as we ‘should’ be.

If it is so pervasive, why should we bother doing anything about it?

At this point, the harms of diet culture are well-known. And it can seem like an uphill battle trying to fight it. But if all of us start to do small things to challenge the status quo, over time we can change things for the better. And hopefully we can find a little peace within our own relationship with food and our bodies and leave the world a little better for the next generation.

Looking for ideas on how you can start to fight back from diet culture? Head on over to part 2 of this series: dismantling diet culture.

Are you wanting to move away from diet culture? We are here to help! The Healthy Eating Clinic takes a health-first approach to nutrition, to ensure you are getting the best support to thrive!

References

  1. Jovanovski N, Jaeger T. Diet culture 101: What is it and what can we do about it? [Internet]. Butterfly Foundation Website: Butterfly Foundation [updated 2022; cited 2023 May 2]. Available from: https://butterfly.org.au/diet-culture-101/#:~:text=Diet%20culture%20reminds%20us%20that,people’s%20dissatisfaction%20with%20their%20bodies.
  2. Byrne C. ‘Diet Culture’ Isn’t Just About Smoothies and Food-Tracking Apps [Internet]. Self website: Self.com; [updated 2022; cited 2023 April 11]. Available from: https://www.self.com/story/what-is-diet-culture#:.
  3. Teich J. The Unbearable Weight of Diet Culture [Internet]. Good Housekeeping website: Good Housekeeping; [updated January 30, 2021; cited 2023 April 11]. Available from: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/diet-nutrition/a35036808/what-is-diet-culture/.
  4. Faw M, Davidson K, Hogan L, Thomas K. Corumination, diet culture, intuitive eating, and body dissatisfaction among young adult women. Personal Relationships. 2020;28.
  5. MacPherson R. What is Diet Culture? [Internet]. Very Well Fit Website: Very Well Fit [updated February 23, 2023; cited 2023 April 28]. Available from: https://www.verywellfit.com/what-is-diet-culture-5194402.
  6. Harrison C. What is Diet Culture? [Internet] Christy Harrison’s Website [updated 2018; cited 2023 April 28]. Available from: https://christyharrison.com/blog/what-is-diet-culture?utm_source=convertkit&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Is+Your+%22Wellness+Plan%22+Really+Just+a+Diet%3F%20-%207391310.
  7. Mingay E, Hart M, Yoong S, Hure A. Why We Eat the Way We Do: A Call to Consider Food Culture in Public Health Initiatives. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021;18(22).
  8. Fitzpatrick K. The Implications of Diet Culture on Mental and Physical Health [Honors Theses]: Eastern Kentucky University; 2022.
  9. Hogan MJ, Strasburger VC. Body image, eating disorders, and the media. Adolesc Med State Art Rev. 2008;19(3):521-46, x-xi.
  10. Brownell KD. Dieting and the search for the perfect body: Where physiology and culture collide. Behavior Therapy. 1991;22(1):1-12.
  11. Montani JP, Schutz Y, Dulloo AG. Dieting and weight cycling as risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases: who is really at risk? Obes Rev. 2015;16 Suppl 1:7-18.
  12. Mann T, Tomiyama AJ, Westling E, Lew A-M, Samuels B, Chatman J. Medicare’s search for effective obesity treatments: Diets are not the answer. American Psychologist. 2007;62:220-33.
  13. Hall KD, Kahan S. Maintenance of Lost Weight and Long-Term Management of Obesity. Med Clin North Am. 2018;102(1):183-97.
  14. Miller WC. How effective are traditional dietary and exercise interventions for weight loss? Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1999;31(8):1129-34.
  15. Teong XT, Liu K, Vincent AD, Bensalem J, Liu B, Hattersley KJ, et al. Intermittent fasting plus early time-restricted eating versus calorie restriction and standard care in adults at risk of type 2 diabetes: a randomized controlled trial. Nature Medicine. 2023;29(4):963-72.