Why it will be good for your health to reject the diet mentality

We are constantly being told we need to lose weight to be healthier, but what if you were told that you could actually do more for your health by stepping off the yo-yo diet train and focussed on wellbeing through a different lense?

Let me give you some definitions first:

Fat-phobia – the irrational fear of fat, fat bodies and people in larger bodies

Weight stigma - discrimination against people who are in larger bodies. It involves stereotyping based on someone’s weight, hurtful comments about larger bodies, disadvantages for higher weight people due to things not being accessible or available for them, and problems accessing health care due to a focus on weight rather than the real health concerns.

Diet mentality – the false belief that weight loss will bring health, happiness and success. It involves constant awareness of foods and a worry about how foods affect our body.

Diet culture – The society we live in that includes all of the above: fat-phobia, weight stigma and diet mentality.

We are surrounded by diet culture.

• You turn on the TV and someone is selling you a low-calorie food, or you are being told that it’s ‘indulgent’ to eat a yoghurt.

• More subtly, you might be aware that protagonists in films tend to be straight-sized, conventionally attractive and that people in larger bodies are either the funny/clumsy/stupid characters or that the story is all about them being fat.

• Conversations with friends, colleagues and family members often revolve around what latest diet someone is on, how they have been ‘naughty’ or ‘good’ with their food choices or exercise regimes, how they really need to lose some weight.

What can you do:

• Become aware of diet culture in your social media feed, in the media and in conversations.

• You have a choice: you can unfollow, block or delete, you can choose to change the conversation or walk away, you can challenge the narrative.

Going to the doctor’s in a larger body can be challenging.

• Chances are that you are leaving with a leaflet for a weight loss programme, that your weight was commented on, that the issue you went for didn’t get the same acknowledgement as if you had been in a smaller body.

• Your concerns might not get addressed as quickly or your health issue might be conflated with your weight.

• You may not go and seek help until the problem has become much worse, for fear of weight stigma and being treated differently.

What can you do:

• You can practice advocating for yourself before you seek medical care if you are in a larger body (contact me if you need support with this!)

• You can choose not to be weighed at the doctors’ surgery.

• Seek medical help as soon as possible when you have a health concern.

Eating disorders are on the rise

• Around 1.25 million people in the UK have an eating disorder, and cases have risen significantly since the start of the pandemic. Whilst not all diets lead to an eating disorder, a large proportion of people suffering from an eating disorder have a history of dieting.

• In the context of diet culture: Having an eating disorder and being applauded for weight loss is HUGELY damaging, being bombarded with triggering comments, adverts and social media posts about ‘shredding’ and ‘toning’ is harmful. Moralising language around foods will fuel the fire.

What can you do:

• Stop commenting on weight and bodies, whether it's about weight gain or loss.

• Be alert and look out for signs of eating disorders in your friends or family members. www.beatingeatingdisorders.org.uk is a good first port of call if you have any concerns (but be aware that even there you will find a lot of fat phobia - please get in touch if you want to find a weight-neutral eating disorder specialist).

• If you think you might have an eating disorder yourself, and you seek treatment for it, head over to the intuitive eating counsellor directory to find someone who uses an intuitive eating approach in their therapy https://www.intuitiveeating.org/certified-counselors/ (you can search by location and then find people based on their profile description.)

The next generation is growing up surrounded by diet culture

• Children growing up these days feel awful about themselves if they don’t fit into the ‘pretty/slim/muscular’ box. They get teased and bullied if they are in a larger body, their appearance seems to be more important than who they are. Whilst most of us had a mum or female relative who was ‘watching their weight’ and made inappropriate comments about our and other people’s bodies, nowadays children have to deal with an onslaught of social media content, TV programmes and peer pressure in addition to that.

• We can help our children build resilience to these messages and teach them how to find peace with food and their bodies, but we need to start with ourselves.

What can you do

• Be mindful about the language you use about food and bodies when you are with children and young people (read my blog on this topic here)

• Help them develop a healthy relationship with food and their bodies by working on your own (and then role model how great it feels!)

Physical and mental health effects

• Diet culture and diet mentality exacerbate weight stigma and fat phobia, which are independent risk factors for conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, depression, anxiety, eating disorders and generally increased stress levels.

• There are around 150 studies to date that show the benefits of intuitive eating and becoming more attuned to your body’s signals. As well as that, working on developing a better body image can be instrumental in quitting dieting for good.

• There is compelling evidence that intentional weight-loss does not work long term for 95% of people. Diet culture blames the individual for this ‘failure’, when in fact complex physical mechanisms are at play here, combined with social and genetic determinants for weight and health.

What can you do

• There are a few health behaviours that will be beneficial regardless of your body size that you can adopt (read more here)

• Educate yourself on the ineffectiveness of diets and focus on reducing stress rather than reducing weight.

• Work with me on becoming an intuitive eater (book a free zoom discovery call)

Societal health impact

• Weight stigma is a form of oppression. It discriminates against people in larger bodies. Whilst people in all bodies can struggle with negative body image, people in large bodies face systemic discrimination: worse healthcare provision, difficulty finding things that fit (from clothes to seating in doctor’s surgeries), fewer job opportunities, daily micro-aggression, etc.

• This discrimination causes trauma, which can manifest on a physical as well as mental health level – not just for individuals but for people in larger bodies as a whole. Given that collectively we are larger now than in the past, this discrimination has a massive impact on our collective health.

• Instead of focussing on individuals, there needs to be societal and governmental change that allows the same level of access, resources and care for every person regardless of their weight.

What can you do

• Be mindful on how your words and actions can affect others.

• Become an advocate for fighting weight stigma.

• Learn about the impact of fat phobia (have a look at my resources list for good books, podcasts and social media accounts to follow)

I leave you in the hope that this blog has managed to explain why diet culture and diet mentality often does more harm than good, and that there is an alternative way of looking after your physical and mental wellbeing that has nothing to do with the number on the scales. I am always happy to chat, just reach out to me via social media, email or book a discovery call with me!