Diet Culture – My Promise
‘Diet culture is omnipresent; it is the predominant culture. It’s the air we breathe. Its all around us. And it’s not just the blatant juice fasts, detox teas, skinny coffees, and the magic ‘fat blasting’ pills. It’s woven into the fabric of everyday life so seamlessly we barely notice it’s there at all: in advertising, TV shows, movies, anti-cellulite products, diet-talk in the office, being ‘good’, being naughty, #fitspo, #cleaneating, and ‘health’ magazines.
Diet culture normalises disordered eating, which in and of itself is an issue. But disordered eating can be a slippery slope to a full blown eating disorder in people who are predisposed or at risk. Ofc not everyone who goes on a diet will develop an eating disorder, but almost everyone who has an eating disorder has been on a diet’. – Just Eat It (Laura Thomas)
I’ve been reading a lot recently and this book has really spoken to me. I read this and felt a sudden urge to ‘check’ myself. Check what I was doing, what I was posting, what I was ‘selling’ to others on IG. It scared me that something I post (well aware I have a fractional amount of followers but its still important) could be a trigger, initiate social comparison, or provide an unrealistic idealistic view of me and my life. I’m deffo guilty of posting the perfectly curated smoothie bowl and not the slop of oats I more often have; or the workout photo that got the right angles instead of the one that shows my red blotchy eyes from the sheer amount of sweat in my eyeballs. On the whole though, I do try to just be my weird, whacky, totally imperfect self (so I will get things wrong) and I’ve tried to not get sucked into #nutribollocks and #fitspo must-get-abs and milk a thousand almonds malarkey, but even more so from now on I’ll be more aware of this and try not to incite health shame, food shame, body shame full stop (grab that glass of whispering 👼 and have a silly photo shoot with your pal yeah?).
Accounts I’m loving at the moment which give my joy:
@rozannapurcell
@chessiekingg
@rianne.meijer
@annavleo
@celestebarber
