Mini-sode: Understanding Diet Culture & The Diet Industry

We talk a lot about diet culture and the diet industry on the show, and I thought now would be a great time to revisit both of them and take a mini deep dive in this episode.

My very first episode took a look at diet culture, but to be honest, my experience of diet culture, the diet industry, and understanding of the two has evolved in the last year. I have learned a lot more. I've experienced a lot more. I feel a lot more confident in the way in which we can talk about it with you today.

In this episode, I'm going to be answering the questions:

What is diet culture?
How is it different from the diet industry?
Do they impact us in different ways?

And I encourage you to stick around till the end of the episode because I will be posing a question that completely knocked me off my diet culture axis the first time I heard it. It could also be used as a journal or writing prompt.

Takeaways:

Diet culture is a system of beliefs that centers thinness.
The diet industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that preys on insecurities.
Diet culture impacts our mental health and self-worth.
Weight loss drugs may not lead to long-term health benefits.
Informed choices are crucial when considering health options.
Diet culture distracts us from pursuing our true passions.
The societal ideal of thinness is rooted in various forms of oppression.
Reflecting on health goals without weight loss is liberating.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Diet Culture
01:54 Understanding Diet Culture
04:26 The Impact of Diet Culture
05:18 The Diet Industry Explained
06:46 Do They Impact Us In Different Ways?
07:27 The Cycle of Diet Culture
08:42 Personal Reflections on Dieting
10:04 Encouragement for Informed Choices

Links Mentioned:

Fategories by Fluffy Kitten Party

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Transcript

Melanie Knights [she/they] (00:00)
Hello friends, welcome back to The Culture of It All. Welcome to episode number 24. If you are new here, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for being here today. I have a mini-sode for you. We are going to be talking about diet culture and the diet industry. I did do an episode, I think way back at the beginning of the show. Last year, I talked about what is diet culture and to be quite honest,

think that my experience of diet culture, the diet industry, my understanding of the two and the way in which I would talk about them has definitely evolved in the last year. I have learned a lot more. I've experienced a lot more. I feel a lot more confident in the way in which we can talk about it today. So in this episode, I'm going to be answering the question, what is diet culture? How is it different from the diet industry? Do they impact us in different ways?

And I encourage you to stick around till the end of the episode because I will be posing a question. It could also be a journal or writing prompt. And this question really, really helped me. It supported me when I decided to stop dieting and started to unlearn all of the baggage that came along with that. So before we get into today's episode, a quick reminder that you can subscribe to the Culture of It All on Substack by heading to cultureofitallpod.substack.com/subscribe

choosing the free or paid plan. Subscribers get early access to episodes, regular bonuses include creative resources, blogs, videos and more. You can also follow the show on Instagram at cultureofitallpod where I share episode updates in the stories and my fat thoughts

Join me over on TikTok at @MelanieKnights where we discuss plus size fashion without the diet talk, body image, parenting, fat acceptance, and as my friend Ali likes to say, you might want to grab your popcorn because the comment section is like an unhinged reality TV show.

Okay, so let's get into it. What is diet culture? The way I see it, diet culture is this group of systems. It's the systems that tell us there is a right way to have a body. Okay, and it tells us that that is the only way to have a body and it is deeply rooted in white supremacy, fatphobia, colonialism, ableism, healthism, lot of theisms, patriarchal beauty standards, gender norms.

and even capitalism.

Diet culture is a system of beliefs which centers thinness and equates it to health and morality. For example, this is the belief that tells us that thin people are morally good. It's why we see the Disney villains. They've always been depicted in larger bodies. And why as a society, it is ingrained in us to define health as thin before anything else, right? It's why we assume

or why a lot of people assume, that you can determine someone's health just by looking at them. It's also a system of beliefs that promotes weight loss as a way to attain a higher social status, a society that centers thinness and idolizes thinness whilst discriminating against anyone who doesn't meet this unrealistic set of standards.

And as Linda from Fluffy Kitten Party talks about in their article on understanding the fat spectrum, I will link to that in the show notes, as your size and weight go up, so do the number of barriers that you face within society.

It's a system of beliefs that has demonized certain ways of eating, right? It is the system of beliefs that tells us that some foods are good and some foods are bad. Food policing is deeply racist and rooted in colonialism. It dismisses cultural differences, religion, dietary needs, and even personal preference.

In the 90s this food policing looked a lot like eating less calories or carbohydrates.

and the classist meal replacements were incredibly expensive. We saw this rise of "fit-fluencers" who pushed their bro meals for chicken and broccoli, idolized eating a metric ton of protein.

So what we tend to see as trends come and go even within the health and wellness industry, even within the diet industry, is that certain foods will be elevated, certain foods will be seen as better than others.

And it's a system of beliefs that oppresses people who don't match up with its health and appearance ideals, right? So it disproportionately harms women and femmes and trans folks and people in larger bodies, people of colour, people without financial privilege, people with disabilities.

Diet culture is the system, or a set of systems. It lays the groundwork. It has formed our beliefs about how we see bodies, our own and others. It created our insecurities, telling us how we should exist in the world around us. It tells young people that unless they are thin, they cannot be loved, successful or worthy. It is the system that tells us we must spend our lives trying to be thin and able-bodied. This system,

gave us the diet industry. The diet industry is a multi-billion dollar per year industry that preys on our insecurities and it is designed to fail long term. I always add that little thing on the end, long term.

It is the industry responsible for diet programs and diet products and books and meals, replacements and clubs and MLMs. It includes industries like health and wellness and supplements. The diet industry, which in my opinion now also includes weight loss drugs and weight loss surgery, is rooted in diet culture. If diet culture didn't exist, the diet industry wouldn't be able to survive because we wouldn't feel the need to pursue thinness.

we would have no need to pursue thinness if this set of beliefs didn't exist. So what's the difference between the two? Well, diet culture is the belief system telling us to pursue thinness. The diet industry was created in order to, and I use this term very, very loosely, help achieve that goal. Now we recently saw in the news that Weight Watchers is going into administration and fat activist and writer, Virgie Tovar, posed the question, "Is this really a win?"

when the rise of GLP-1s is being given as the cause? Maybe, I guess, is the way I would see it.

I think it will always be beneficial when a diet company is no longer sustainable, especially one that has dominated the industry for decades and is responsible for many people's disordered eating.

So does diet culture in the diet industry impact us differently? The impact of diet culture goes far beyond what we eat. It's not about people's misguided concern for our health. Diet culture is a system that uses distraction as a form of control.

I spend my life focused on how I look or making my body smaller, which is a never-ending cycle of harm, then I'm too hungry, I'm too tired, and I'm too distracted to do much else. Diet culture consumes us. It consumes our mind, it consumes our thoughts, it consumes our fears, it consumes our time, it steals our dreams and prevents us from speaking up.

That's why it's no coincidence that in the current political shitstorm that we're in,

during times when we see rampant spread of fascism and the far-right ideology, fat phobia becomes worse than ever and it feels like everyone and their grandma is on a weight loss drug.

Now diet culture might tell us that we will be able to do more, we'll be able to be more, we'll be to have more when we are in a smaller body, right? It idolises thinness, it tells us that's the dream, it tells us we'll be able to do have, be all these things once we achieve that. But it will never actually let us have body peace. It will never actually let you be at peace with your body. It will always have its hooks in you.

always.

dieting, weight loss, the pursuit of thinness, it won't bring us true body peace. The drugs being heavily pushed right now, they won't bring us body peace. And we honestly don't know what they'll actually do long term yet. But history tells us that they won't work long term and could cause far more harm to someone's mental and physical health.

Let me finish with this. I might be anti-diet, but I'm not anti-dieter. I have spent most of my life on the fat spectrum.

and also trying to make my body smaller. I have pursued thinness, I've done a lot of different things try and achieve this like "ideal" body created by diet culture. What it led to was a lot of disordered eating. It led to a hidden binge eating disorder.

It stopped me from pursuing my dreams and passions. It held me back in life. The same thing telling me that I would be more successful, I'd be able to do more and achieve more, if I was thin, actually stopped me from pursuing anything at all, because all I was focused on was being in a smaller body. Now I believe in bodily autonomy. You have the right to choose what you do with your body. Period.

But for true autonomy, I do also believe you need to be fully informed of all the facts. Seeing your favourite celebrity or influencer taking a drug is not being fully informed. Relying on a doctor who is literally getting paid to push these drugs is not being fully informed. Listening to this episode is not being fully informed, right? That's the reality of it.

I encourage you to do your own research and also maybe speak to people who have different experiences because not everyone is having this like incredible experience using these drugs or even on weight loss surgery. And I think it's really important that those conversations are highlighted more.

So as promised, I'm going to leave you with a question, a writing prompt if you will. If you could improve your health markers and achieve all of your goals without weight loss, would you still want to work towards those goals?