For many people, the pressure to look a certain way begins long before they even realize it. Diet culture convinces us that our bodies need to be changed. This is extremely harmful. Instead of focusing on creating a healthy lifestyle for people who want to lose weight, it encourages them to lose weight in unhealthy ways. This kind of culture is displayed throughout school environments, advertising, and social media.
For example, diet culture has several key characteristics, including thinness, weight, morality attached to food, the glorification of restriction, and the constant pressure to fix yourself. These traits are something that many young people consider a great thing, but in reality, losing weight by following these diet culture characteristics can be detrimental to your health.
On social media, being extremely thin gives people the impression that you are attractive and disciplined, but viewers do not see how you actually achieve that level of thinness. People starve themselves and make it seem like they are working out and healthily losing the weight. This can encourage people to strive for a thinner appearance, influenced by the images they see. Along with this, diet culture and its supporters believe that to be healthy, you need to be at a low weight. This completely encourages people to want to be skinny, but in reality, BMI is crucial.
Two of the worst characteristics of diet culture are the constant pressure to improve oneself and look better, and the glorification of restricting oneself to fit the “standards” that diet culture promotes. Many influencers emphasize the importance of self-control over what you eat, stating that to lose weight, you must participate in intense exercise and fast. This is overall super unhealthy because it can lead people to fall into a constant battle of needing to make sure they are doing the right things to fit the beauty standards that society has created. Instead of promoting the unhealthy lifestyle of diet culture, people need to focus on learning to find a balance between a healthy approach to exercise and eating.
Diet culture dictates how we view health, losing sight of what our bodies truly need. Choosing a healthier mindset means letting go of restrictive ideals and embracing habits that are sustainable and positive.
