The word “diet” has been around since the 13th century. The idea of diets and diet culture is nothing new and has been popular for generations. However, it is time to leave diet culture and all of its toxicity in the past. Diet culture has become so normalized in our society that we do not even give a second thought to the unhealthy mindset it creates.
According to Refinery29, the average age for a girl to start dieting was 14 years old in the 80’s. The age since then has dropped significantly, and today the average age is 8 years old. This is most likely due to the increase in time spent on social media and young girls and boys being exposed to unrealistic expectations of their body and self-image.
When scrolling through Instagram, it is almost impossible to go without seeing a celebrity or influencer either posting photoshopped pictures of themselves or promoting the most current fad diet. These are the things that lead to young people developing eating disorders and falling into diet culture.
Diet culture promotes focus on the way one looks and what the scale says rather than focusing on the health and wellness of human beings. This encourages things such as calorie restrictions, over exercising, and an all-around major negative impact on mental health.
This causes people to disregard what registered dieticians and physicians say about healthy eating and exercise and solely put their attention towards labeling foods as either good or bad, depending on the calorie or fat count of the food. Allowing foods to make you feel guilty is very toxic and can lead to disease and eating disorders.
Instead of focusing on counting calories and on the way you look, it is much more beneficial in the long run to eat healthy foods and foods that actually make you feel good. Eating whole foods such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains will not only cause healthy weight loss but a much better and positive mental health growth.
Society needs to remember that the entire point of food and eating is to give us energy to live, not to make us thin or lose weight. While I am aware that it is easier said than done to look past physical appearance in a society that hyper-focuses on people’s physical appearances, I believe it is very important to do so.
The diet culture is a $40 billion industry, and it profits off of toxic eating habits and unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others. It is imperative that we work together as a society to move pass diet culture and treat our body’s with kindness.