The Toxicity of Diet Culture

Tara Mladenovic, ’24

How many people have tried crazy diets to obtain one goal? That one goal being to lose weight. A majority of people have, but they might not even know this. In fact, they may think their diets are normal because social media, more specifically diet culture, has disguised them as something healthy or as a ‘quick fix to all their weight loss goals’. Diet culture, as defined by Christy Harrison, is “a system of beliefs that worships thinness, equates it to health and demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others.”  During New Years, diet culture is at its prime. With so many people making weight loss resolutions, diet culture sees this as an opportunity. It feeds all these people lies and what they like to call ‘quick fixes’-- supplying individuals with the idea that they could completely transform their body in one month (as if that is even possible). The ‘quick fixes’ they give usually have to do with an overpriced pill or some weird egg diet. Rather than trying to enable people to make healthy choices and gradually change their lifestyle into something sustainable and better, diet culture bashes this. It allows you to think that taking a pill before you go to bed will burn fat, and that eating ‘x’ amount of calories per day whilst running for hours on end is healthy. As quoted in a healthline article written by Jenniffer Still, “Dieting was never about health for me. Dieting was about being thinner, and therefore prettier, and therefore happier”. In all actuality, thinness does not equate to happiness. However, diet culture makes people believe otherwise. In fact, diet culture splits foods into categories labeled good or bad. The Youtuber, FrumpyFit, states, “When we classify foods as bad and good we are creating a negative relationship with some foods.” As a result, diet culture causes many people to have an unhealthy relationship with food and their body, and at times this can even result in eating disorders. 

Instead of listening to what diet culture says, we should slowly start to implement healthy habits into our everyday life and eventually they can become a part of our lifestyle. This is because our body needs time to adapt to the changes we plan on making. And to remind everyone, it is completely fine and normal to enjoy a cookie or have a milkshake. Believe it or not, a random pill is not going to solve all your problems. Neither is the ‘ideal body’, whatever that may look like for you. You only have one life, why spend it trying to live up to everyone else’s expectations.