Loving Yourself in a Diet-Dominated Society
Have you ever gone on a diet? Have you ever counted your calories, thought about what you were going to eat hours in advance, or obsessively worked out in order to maintain or lose weight? Well, you’re not alone. In 2015-2018, 19 percent of American women went on a diet. That’s 1 in 5.
Dieting can be all-consuming. Have any of your past diet attempts ever been centered around the way that you look? If not, you aren’t alone. In a survey conducted by Glamour magazine, 97% of women admitted to having at least one “I hate my body” moment on any given day.
You’d think that with as many American women dieting as there are, we would be happier in our bodies. However, this isn’t the case. Diet culture, or the narrative surrounding dieting, appears ideal on the surface but is actually a toxic and dangerous mindset if you sink too far into it.
Megan Jayne Crabbe, a body positivity influencer, wrote an incredible book titled Body Positive Power after her harrowing experience with an eating disorder.
Megan Jayne Crabbe’s book, Body Positive Power, details the harmful effects of the diet industry.
Crabbe, who has lots of experience in the fallacies of the diet industry, says, “Diet culture is dangerous detoxes, liquid fasts, poisonous pills, and “magic” potions. It’s fitness as an obsession and self-hatred as a motivator” (39). With just a quick Google search of “fast diets,” one can find hundreds of fad diets promising you “Results that Work!” and the possibility to “Shed That Weight.” With all of this being shouted from billboards and social media, Crabbe says it’s no wonder that girls, on average, start dieting at age eight. Eight! They’ve not yet hit puberty and yet they’re already trying to alter their bodies.
The idea of calorie counting came into fruition with the popularization of Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters’ book, Diet and Health, with Key to the Calories in 1918, who “encouraged her readers to always think about food in terms of calories.... Instead of saying one slice of bread, or a piece of pie, you are going to say 100 calories of bread, 350 calories of pie.” says Crabbe. Now, growing up in the 20th and 21st centuries, we know that this narrative spread like wildfire. What used to be fuel turned into our enemy.
The same is the case with cellulite. Crabbe talks about Nicole Rosnard, who in 1973 was featured in an interview with Vogue magazine to promote her new book, Cellulite: Those Lumps, Bumps, and Bulges You Couldn’t Lose Before. With her book came a brand-new flaw that no one had ever worried about before but again, is now all over American diet culture.
Now, you may be wondering, “What’s so bad about counting calories and staying healthy?” Nothing is wrong with staying healthy. It’s when habits become unhealthy and unsafe that dieting and diet culture truly takes a toll. The “lotions and potions” talked about by Crabbe, while sounding fake, are all too true.
The Kardashian family promotes their detox teas, which contrary to losing weight, are dangerous laxatives that aren’t approved for weight loss. One example, Bootea, the UK’s leading detox tea, contains senna and Chinese rhubarb root. These are natural laxatives, “used to treat constipation and also to clear the bowel before diagnostic tests such as colonoscopies,” says Crabbe. These teas are being abused by people who don’t know how dangerous they can be.
These frantic methods of losing weight are a terrible and inhumane way to profit from human fear and insecurity. Along with those are fad diets. You know the ones that proclaim you can “Lose 10 lbs in 10 days!” or “800 Calorie Diets” which are emblazoned in bold letters from every magazine stand in the grocery store. One would usually assume that these are tested and safe methods of getting weight off fast, but that’s not correct.
An example: in the 1940s, Ancel Key conducted his famous Minnesota Starvation Experiment, in which he tested the effects of hunger on men’s mental state. Crabbe mentions that Key gave these military men, all completely healthy, 1570-calorie (sem-starvation) rations with daily walking requirements in order to make sure they maintained, if not lost, weight. Over the course of a week, the men became impatient and irritable, becoming jealous if others received bigger rations. They experienced an intense loss of sex drive, and several of the mens’ mental states deteriorated so severely that they became violent and had to be admitted to a psych ward,
Now that you’ve realized how awful and toxic the diet industry is, I’m sure you’re wondering how on earth to reverse the damage done to your mental health. The simple answer is intuitive eating, or eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full. As Crabbe says, “We were born with it, we can get back to it.” Sadly, this notion isn’t as easy as it sounds. Years of conditioning have taught us that feeling hunger is bad unless it’s during specific mealtimes.
There are three easy steps laid out by Crabbe to start eating intuitively again. The first step is to get back in touch with your hunger signals. Crabbe rates hers on a scale of one to 10 and eats according to how dire her hunger is. The second and most important step is to eat whatever your body is telling you it wants. Deprivation gets you nowhere on your road to recovery, and in order to train your body to feel nourished by “healthy” foods, it needs to feel satisfied. The third and final step is to stop when you’re full. Crabbe defines healthy eating as “having a healthy balance of foods and having a healthy relationship with food.”
Once you’ve mastered intuitive eating, you’ll begin to find the joy of eating again. Eating is not supposed to be a chore, with as many delicious flavors and new dishes to try as we have in our society. Crabbe famously says, “We spend our days waiting to live until our bodies are good enough. The only problem is then our days are spent.” If you spend your life waiting until you look perfect, you’ll spend your whole life unhappily chasing an ideal that doesn’t exist. Our bodies are for doing.
There are three small changes that you can do right now in order to heal your relationship with food and your lovely body. First, stop comparing yourself to others. The “thinspo” pictures on your Instagram aren’t helping you, they’re hurting your self-esteem. Go through and delete anyone you’re following who isn’t bettering your mental health. Surround yourself with images and people that love you NOW, not in 10 pounds.
Crabbe’s Instagram, @meganjaynecrabbe, features lots of beautiful pictures of unedited bodies. Give it a follow!
Next, spend time with your body. It does so much for you, and it’s not fair of you to hate it so much. Recognize all of the things that it can do. Your arms, while you may not like the size, are for hugging. Your belly, while it hangs over the top of your jeans, is such a soft place for your partner to rest their head after a long day. Your legs, though they may not be a perfect shape, are for dancing. Look at yourself in the mirror and smile.
Your body does so much for you. Say thank you every once and a while!
Finally, take yourself out on a date and eat whatever you want, regardless of what the people around you may think. Have you always wanted to try tiramisu? Does the “all you can eat” pasta bar sound incredible? It probably is. Give it a try!
You’ve been conditioned to see food as good or bad, to see dieting as essential and to see your body as your enemy. Once you start to unpack the dissatisfaction with your own body, the road is much easier and less riddled with hatred. Life becomes sweet again— and I can’t wait for you to experience that.
