The Culture Of It All
Your anti-diet sidekick and go-to resource as we explore what it really means to ditch diet culture whilst living life in a larger body. Your host, Melanie Knights will be sharing stories, busting diet culture myths, and breaking through the bullshit of the $72 billion diet industry.
Discussing topics such as anti-fatness, body liberation, body positivity, media representation, and intuitive eating. We will create a foundation for bodily autonomy, and take actionable steps to advocate for, and honour our own needs so that we can take up space, challenge weight stigma, and live a more confident, comfortable and joyful fat life!
The Culture Of It All
Haunting Diet Myths: The Diet Industry Cycle That Keeps Us Afraid, Hungry & Invested
In this episode, we’ll be exploring the cycle of fear and blame the diet industry has created and how this impacts our body image and relationship to food. We’ll also look at some of the nuances, including the erasure of fat folks from history, and why it appears to be socially acceptable to discriminate against someone based on their body size/weight. We’ll also take a look at how the diet industry uses fear based marketing practices to sell their products, and the outcomes when the ‘solution’ doesn’t work.
If you’d rather not hear my life, podcast and business update, skip forward to 12:21
Content Warning: use of the word o*esity within context at 13:40
Takeaways:
- Fat people have always existed, even before the invention of BMI and the diet industry
- Fat bias does not respond to exposure
- If we care about people’s health, then we should care about their mental health
- The diet industry is worth $70billion a year!
The Cycle:
Create A Problem > Create Fear > Sell “The Solution” > Blame Individual
Chapters:
00:00 Halloween Preparations and Personal Updates
07:02 Reflections on the Podcast Journey
12:09 Haunting Diet Myths: Introduction to the Topic
20:15 The Diet Industry Cycle Explained
32:03 Understanding Body Diversity and Acceptance
Links mentioned:
instagram.com/historicalfatpeople
Come say 'hello' on social media! You'll find episode content, anti diet journal prompts and personal lessons on Instagram
Support the show over on Substack! You'll find regular episodes along with monthly bonus episodes in our wonderful fat positive community.
Check out my journals and stickers at Outlaw Creatives