The Toxic Diet Culture

I often encounter TikToks advertising detox teas or diets that will help you “lose weight quick.” I usually laugh and keep scrolling, knowing how futile and detrimental they are. However, I often notice 12-year-old girls asking about the specific measurements for the drink or further requirements for the diets. In fact, 46 percent of nine to 11-year-olds are “sometimes” or “very often” on diets. If I saw these TikToks a couple of years ago, I would have believed them too.

America has a toxic diet culture that promotes weight loss over everything else. While some science-backed diets exist, far more common are harmful routines that equate a skinny body with a healthy one.

This culture promotes the idea that food comes in the way of achieving an ideal hourglass body. Fifty percent of women are on a diet on any given day. Many of these diets cut off whole food groups from one regime. For example, the Ketogenic diet restricts starches, sugars, and even fruits; the Paleolithic diet avoids sugar, grains, legumes, and dairy; and the Atkins diet refrains from fruit, grains, starchy vegetables, dairy, and nuts. Most people are unable to sustain the diet, stray away from it, and then start again. Eighty percent of overweight people cannot maintain weight loss for a long period of time. A study from the American Heart Association found that this yo-yo dieting increases a woman’s risk of developing heart disease. The Ketogenic diet, in particular, has the potential of causing low blood pressure, kidney stones, and increased risk of heart disease.

The issue with this toxic diet culture is not only its unsustainability but also the mindset it spreads. It pushes the idea that losing weight is the key to happiness and confidence, with 77 percent of 800 women believing that if they lost a certain amount of weight, they would feel differently about themselves. However, in a study of 1,979 participants, those who lost five percent or more of their body weight over four years were 52 percent more likely to be depressed than the participants who maintained their weight over the four years.

The diet culture also alters the way children view themselves and is only magnified by the increased usage of social media among young users, as it is a medium for trends and diet cultures to spread. Many times, children cannot differentiate between what is manufactured and what is real, which provides unrealistic standards for the ideal body. They see celebrities on Instagram promoting diet culture to their adult audience. They notice when Kourtney Kardashian raves about the Ketogenic diet or when Chris Hemsworth publicizes losing 33 pounds for a role. Moreover, parents, who may also follow the culture, have the greatest influence on their kids. Girls under the age of 11 with a mother who diets are significantly more likely to diet than girls with mothers who do not.

However, our relationship with food does not have to be this emotionally intense. The intuitive movement offers another way. It teaches you how to listen to the signals of your body, eat when you’re hungry, and stop when full. Intuitive eating ends the common practice of calorie counting or labeling food as “bad” or “good,” which is found to result in a 17 percent increase in the chance of binge eating among women. Long-term results of intuitive eating show a decrease in cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and body dissatisfaction, as well as an increase in improved eating behaviors and want for physical activity. The aim of intuitive eating is not to lose weight but to maintain your weight and to love food.

Intuitive eating is effective because it does not restrict foods and does not bring guilt for eating food you love. When you know you cannot eat something, you are more likely to crave and eat more of it than when you are allowed to eat it. Additionally, intuitive eating fixes the unfulfilled satisfaction after losing weight, as it promotes happiness that is not dependent on outside characteristics.

However, it is much easier to write about this model than to implement these lifestyles. It will take a lot of work to undo the deeply-rooted diet culture, but there is still hope. Famous celebrities like Jameela Jamil are rejecting the diet culture and promoting intuitive eating. The intuitive eating movement is growing very quickly, and there is a growing recognition of the toxicity of the diet culture.