Diet Culture: Break the Cycle
Who else remembers every time someone called them fat growing up? I’ll go first…
When I was 13 a family member told me: “the boys would like you if you lost some weight.”
When I was 15 my basketball coach told me that I would get more playing time if I lost 5 pounds.
I could unfortunately go on...
So much of the beginning of my life was spent exhaustingly jumping from one fad diet to the next. I did nutrisystem when I was 16. I vividly remember taking naps every day and being cold all the time. It was because my body was literally going into starvation mode.
In college, I did a diet that required me to replace two of my meals with shakes and two days a month I would fast and only eat two very chalky “snacks”. I would have to plan to do nothing those two days of the month because I knew I was going to be so tired and irritable. I thought I looked so good, but internally my body was shutting down.
How many of us remember our Moms being on the “Zone Diet” or the “South Beach Diet” growing up? Those were our role models: women who were openly showing us that they were uncomfortable with their bodies. Being confident in your body? Oh no, you could always lose five more pounds.
This is where diet culture starts.
So, I’m here to challenge you to change the way you think about “dieting”. If you have a daughter, younger sister, niece, any young woman who looks up to you: don’t talk negatively about your own body or tell them that you are on a diet.
Because to them, you are perfect. You are their role model and everything they want to be. So, if they see you doubting yourself and the way you look, the cycle will continue. Why wouldn’t they think: “Well if she’s on a diet, I should be too.”
Teach the next generation that they don’t need to starve themselves to feel good in their own skin.
Teach them a healthy relationship with food by giving them strong role models who love themselves, no matter their size.
Show them that their worth is not measured by how much they weigh or how they look.
