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The Overlap Between Diet Culture and Self Hatred

I wasn't planning on writing this blog post. It actually annoys me to write this blog post... however, after this morning, I am writing this.

This morning, I was at the gym and walking on the treadmill to warm up. A mom and daughter walked in, and while I was walking I overheard the mom say to her daughter,


"We're not leaving here until you've walked for an hour. Spring break is coming up and you can't be looking like that."


For reference, while I'm not GREAT at guessing ages, I would estimate the daughter to be in late middle school/early high school. After hearing that, I had to bite my tongue in order to stop from turning around and saying something to the mom. I continued my warm-up, and then went off to continue my workout, and while leaving I walked past them again. (At this point, about an hour has passed), and the mom turns to the daughter and asks, "How many calories does your watch say you burned?" My stomach sunk.


While I admit, I have a tendency to be hypersensitive about comments regarding food/body image due to having experienced both anorexia, and BED (Binge Eating Disorder), I found this to be absolutely disgusting.


We, as a society, are teaching the coming generations to hate who they are, and allowing them to believe that they need to change in order to be accepted and loved. According to diet culture, and those who buy into it, it is no longer okay/acceptable to get a coffee in the morning and eat breakfast. We shouldn't eat carbs. We can't enjoy the food before us. If we aren't hungry, we aren't succeeding. If you can't see your bones, you aren't lovable. If you aren't muscular, you're overweight. Now don't get me wrong either, diet culture extends in the other direction too. This radical viewpoint that we should be able to eat hamburgers and milkshakes every day and not move is unhealthy as well. But after hearing the two snippets of that conversation, it made me realize how flawed we are as a society.

We sit and wonder where we have gone wrong... why suicide/depression rates are so high in young adults & teens in particular... why drug/alcohol abuse is appearing at younger and younger ages... and yet. Yet we encourage this notion that we are 'not good enough,' and we 'need to change to be loved.'


Moral of this short story - Next time you find yourself falling into the toxicity of diet culture, remind yourself that in order to grow in love for yourself/being able to extend kindness towards who you are, you're going to have to reject this mentality that's been pushed onto all of us so heavily.


Let's learn to love movement, rather than using it as a punishment. To fuel our bodies/minds, as opposed to starving them, and from there, to observe what happens in ourselves.





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