Diet culture is a pervasive phenomenon that significantly influences how society views food, body image, and health. It encompasses a set of beliefs and practices centered on weight loss, the pursuit of thinness as a moral imperative, and the alteration of eating habits. While dieting for health reasons has roots in ancient Greece, the modern concept of dieting motivated by weight loss emerged in the mid-19th century. Over time, this culture has evolved, facing challenges from movements like fat acceptance and body positivity, and raising concerns about its potential harm to mental and physical health.
Defining Diet Culture
Diet culture is a term often used critically to discuss contemporary approaches to dieting and body image. It describes a common set of trends and norms that may specifically affect those undertaking dieting or monitoring their caloric or nutritional intake. It often describes a set of societal beliefs pertaining to food and body image, primarily focused on losing weight, an endorsement of thinness as a high moral standard, and the alteration of food consumption.
Diet culture is the pervasive belief that certain body types are better than others. It’s based on myths that can ultimately have negative consequences for one’s overall well-being. But these myths didn’t spread randomly. The history of diet culture shows us that the stigmatization of body weight and the celebration of food restriction have been endorsed to uphold systems of power and oppression.
From a strictly biological perspective, a diet refers to the food an organism consumes to nourish its body and sustain life. For instance, a black bear has a diverse diet consisting of roots, berries, grass, fish, meat, and insects. However, our cultural interpretation of the word “diet” has taken on a different meaning altogether. In our social context, the term “diet” often implies that someone is consciously restricting their consumption with the goal of losing weight. It is important to note that extensive research has demonstrated the inefficacy and potential harm associated with dieting for weight loss purposes.
The concept of diet culture encompasses the collective beliefs and practices that promote the pursuit of weight loss as the ultimate marker of health and well-being. It is a pervasive force that permeates various aspects of our lives, from media portrayals of “ideal” bodies to the messages we receive from friends, family, and even healthcare professionals. Diet culture often emphasizes the importance of adhering to strict eating regimens, promoting quick fixes, and advocating for the thin ideal. However, this narrow focus on weight loss overlooks the complexity and diversity of individual experiences with food and health. It disregards the fact that bodies come in all shapes and sizes, and that true well-being encompasses not only physical health but also mental, emotional, and social aspects of our lives. Furthermore, research has consistently shown that weight is not a reliable indicator of overall health. In fact, focusing solely on weight loss can lead to detrimental effects on both physical and mental well-being.
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Even if you’ve never been on a diet, you aren’t immune to the effects of diet culture. If you’ve ever caught yourself equating thinness with good and fatness with bad, that’s because diet culture has percolated throughout our society. From the moment we are born, anti-fatness, or the fear of being fat is deeply ingrained in us. This instilled fear affects how we view our own bodies and how we perceive the bodies of others. And, it didn’t just come out of the blue.
Historical Roots of Diet Culture
While dieting for health reasons can be traced to ancient Greece, and a type of spiritually-focused eating disorder called holy anorexia was known in the Middle Ages, the movement of dieting motivated specifically by weight loss emerged in the middle of the 19th century.
The connection between moral virtue and thinness came from early Christians who regarded the body as the enemy of the soul. Practitioners in the Middle Ages would engage in long fasts and eat very little to purify the body. Called Anorexia mirabilis, this kind of disordered eating began the ties between food restriction and morality. The puritanical encouragement toward dieting continued with the preacher Sylvester Graham (father of the graham cracker).
19th Century Origins
Historians trace the contemporary Western relationship between dieting and weight loss to 1863 when English writer William Banting authored “A Letter on Corpulence.” However, Banting didn’t have a background in health or medicine. His writing came from his own struggles with his weight. At age 64, Banting was 5’5” and weighed 202 pounds.
When he started to lose his hearing, Banting turned to surgeon William Harvey. Harvey had recently attended a lecture in Paris about the connection between the liver and diabetes, and had since been investigating how sugar, fats, and starches influenced the body. When a distressed Banting asked for solutions to weight loss, Harvey recommended that he cut out “bread, butter, milk, sugar, beer and potatoes and to live on mainly animal protein, fruit and non-starchy vegetables.” About nine months later, Banting had lost 35 pounds and his quality of life had significantly improved. He then self-published “A Letter on Corpulence” detailing his journey and gave copies away for free.
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Banting’s published ideas primarily appealed to men who had traded work in the field for sedentary desk jobs, thanks to industrialization. These men feared that their bodies were becoming too soft and feminine, and weight loss became a way to reclaim their masculinity. Banting indeed targeted “A Letter on Corpulence” to the growing white male middle class, who prized self-control, education, and morality.
On the other hand, the patriarchal society of the 1830s perceived women as emotional and lacking self-control, and therefore not built for the rigors of dieting. Beauty standards of the time also did not prioritize thinness; rather, plumpness was associated with traits like wealth, motherhood, and sexual aptitude.
It wasn’t until the 1890s when diet advice began appearing in American women’s magazines, when societal beauty standards around the female body were slowly shifting away from the dominant hourglass figure of the 19th century.
Early 20th Century: The Rise of the "Flapper"
The “ideal” female body type continued to evolve in the early 20th century. By the 1920s, following World War I, social activities that had once been overseen in the home - like dating - became public. New technology like movies and radio meant that trends could spread nationally - such as the “flapper” look for women.
“Flappers” embraced a fiercely modern look, idealizing a thin, youthful, and flat-chested body type. They rejected rigid gender roles by wearing knee-length skirts (shockingly short for the time), cutting their hair, exposing skin, smoking in public, and attending jazz clubs. Suddenly, while plumpness had previously been associated with wealth and sexuality, thinness now reigned supreme. Only women who weren’t desperate for food had the privilege of restricting their consumption for aesthetics, so the line of thinking went.
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As the demand for weight loss increased, so did the strategies to achieve this - like calorie counting, which had originated as a food rationing technique during World War I. In 1918, Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters, an American physician, popularized the concept of calorie counting for weight loss in her book, Diet & Health: With Key to the Calories. “In war time it is a crime to hoard food,” wrote Dr. Hunt Peters. “Yet there are hundreds of thousands of individuals all over America who are hoarding food…stored away in their own anatomy.” Dr. Peters’ work characterized fat people as unpatriotic threats to the future of the United States. This perception linked weight to behaviors and values, just as often happened with race, gender and class.
Post-World War II Diet Culture
The diet industry exploded after World War II. This was due, in part, to advancements in food and advertising technology as well as increasing social, economic, and political pressures to conform to ideal standards of citizenship, femininity, and the nuclear family. At the time, the ideal American woman, as portrayed by pop culture, happily married a man, had children, and managed the suburban home. The image of the ideal American family relied on an idealized aesthetic of domesticity. Thus, housewives were particularly vulnerable to the diet industry, which often pushed new and more harmful tactics.
American women began using new methods to diet, advanced by advertisers. For example, amphetamines, like Benzedrine, which were originally used by soldiers to treat combat stress reaction (now known as PTSD), were increasingly marketed to women as diet pills. In 1967, one study found that patients at weight loss clinics spent $120 million on diet pills alone. Fad diets, including the grapefruit diet and the cabbage soup diet, also represented the desire for an easy dieting fix.
In addition, brick and mortar dieting facilities began cropping up in the 1940s and 1950s. These facilities, often called reducing salons, had “reducing machines” designed to shape and slim one’s body. Weight Watchers shifted dieting from a fad to a lifestyle change.
Mid-20th Century: Fat Acceptance and Fat Liberation Movements
Amid this rejection of the status quo, the fat acceptance and fat liberation movements took root, addressing the social, political, and economic systems that create barriers for fat people. Fat liberationists contested anti-fat bias in employment and organized events such as the Fat-In in Central Park.
Fat Black women formed the cornerstone of these movements. Margaret K. Bass wrote “On Being a Fat Black Girl in a Fat-Hating Culture” (2011) to reflect on her experience growing up in the 1950s and 1960s: “No one prepared me for living life as a fat person.” Her account of harassment, bullying, and pressure to lose weight describes the struggles of living as a fat Black girl living in an anti-fat world. Johnnie Tillmon, a social welfare activist, wrote, “I’m a woman. I’m a Black woman. I’m a poor woman. I’m a fat woman. I’m a middle-aged woman. And I’m on welfare. In this country, if you’re any one of those things you count less as a human being. If you’re all those things, you don’t count at all. Except as a statistic.”
Despite the growing fat acceptance movements, dieting pressures grew in the 1970s and 80s. Exercise classes became increasingly popular for individuals hoping to slim down. American actress Jane Fonda starred in an at-home workout video that sold 17 million copies between 1982 and 1985. At the same time, diet foods became increasingly popular for American consumers. Lean Cuisine (created in 1981) and Diet Coke (created in 1982) offered low-fat, low-sugar, and low-calorie options. The accessibility of exercise options and diet foods made it much easier for the average American to participate in diet culture.
1990s and 2000s: The "Waif" Aesthetic and Body Positivity
In the 1990s and 2000s, an era of tabloids, paparazzi walks, and reality television provided Americans with myriad ways to observe, admire, and imitate the bodies of thin women. The “waif” and “heroin chic” aesthetics, popularized by British model Kate Moss, encouraged an androgynous and emaciated body as the beauty ideal. The hypervisibility of celebrities like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears opened up conversation about the size of these women’s bodies. While these conversations certainly increased pressures to conform to a thin body type, this media landscape also increased awareness about eating disorders, particularly anorexia and bulimia.
As some Americans became dissatisfied with pressures to diet and lose weight, they sought out new ways of viewing their bodies. Body positivity and body neutrality have grown in popularity over recent years. Additionally, fat studies scholars have begun questioning the efficacy of some measures of health, such as the use of the Body Mass Index (BMI). Recently, fat activists won a major victory when New York Mayor Eric Adams banned discrimination based on weight in May 2023.
Contemporary Diet Culture: Social Media and Weight Loss Drugs
With a new year comes an opportunity to start fresh and, for some Americans, that means losing weight. According to a Forbes survey on new year’s resolutions, 48% of respondents reported they wanted to improve their fitness, 34% wanted to lose weight, and 32% wanted to improve their diet. Resolutions related to appearance and health outweighed several other wellness goals, such as spending time with loved ones (25%), improving work-life balance (7%), and meditating more regularly (5%).
In 2024, these resolutions have been bolstered by the emergence of quick weight loss drugs, like Ozempic, a drug intended for adults with Type 2 diabetes that has been harnessed for its weight loss side effects. Some celebrities have spoken openly about using Ozempic to lose weight and the drug has exploded in popularity among the public. Shortages of the drug are expected throughout 2024.
Over the past few years, culture commentators have noticed a trend toward ultra-thinness among celebrities like Kim Kardashian right on the heels of the "slim-thick" era of the 2010s, when BBLs and waist trainers reigned. This itself comes after the super thin supermodel era of the 1990s, showing that weight and body size trends have always vacillated - and the history of dieting is rife with political, social and economic influences.
The Dark Side of Diet Culture
Diet culture is especially difficult to reject if you are struggling with an eating disorder.
There are concerns that it could promote body image issues, eating disorders, and other mental health issues. Due to these concerns and the negative appeal surrounding the term, diet culture has been reframed as a focus on fitness and health. At the same time, those advocating against diet culture have faced accusations of spreading inaccurate information by denying or minimizing the health impact of excessive weight and unhealthy diets.
One of the most dangerous aspects of diet culture is that it stands in the way of people getting the healthcare they need. Called healthism, this is the idea that a person is solely responsible for their own health. This concept is behind the harmful messaging that not only says fat bodies are unhealthy, but they are a result of that person not eating well or exercising enough. But in reality, you find that about one-third of a person’s health is linked to their behavior. The rest is due to factors out of one’s control, called the Social Determinants of Health.
Rather than supporting wellness, diet culture has serious ramifications for both physical and mental health. Moreover, diet culture fosters negative body image, as it perpetuates unrealistic beauty standards and a serious weight stigma. This toxic mindset contributes to body dissatisfaction and low self-esteem. Additionally, diet culture significantly increases the risk of developing eating disorders, as the obsession with food, restriction, and control can trigger disordered eating patterns and severe psychological distress.
The influence of diet culture, fatphobia, and weight stigma can lead to many negative consequences, including: (4,5)
- Body dissatisfaction
- Negative body image
- Poor self-esteem
- Psychological distress
- Depression
- Anxiety
Weight stigma can also increase the risk of engaging in disordered eating symptoms, including binge eating episodes, purging, and restricting. (4,5)
Diet Culture and Systems of Oppression
Historically, white colonial thought has employed body size as a tool for asserting racial superiority and justifying the oppression of black bodies. Since the time of slavery, black individuals were often depicted as inherently physically inferior based on their larger body sizes. The sociologist Sabrina Strings brings this to light in her book Fearing the Black Body: Racial Origins of Fat Phobia. She points out that “…the current anti-fat bias in the United States and in much of the West was not born in the medical field.
Moreover, diet culture is closely intertwined with patriarchal norms and expectations that dictate how women should look and behave. Women’s bodies have been objectified, scrutinized, and policed throughout history, as patriarchal systems seek to control and regulate their autonomy. Diet culture perpetuates the idea that women must be thin, in order to be valued and accepted. Unfortunately, this pressure starts early. A study by Smolak (2011) found that girls as young as six begin expressing concerns about their weight, with 40-60% of girls in elementary school worrying about becoming “too fat.” That being said, this patriarchal expectation isn’t restricted to just women.
As with every group that a system tries to put down, it’s lifting up another. Both racism and sexism go hand- in- hand with thin privilege. For a few concrete examples, consider how people in thinner bodies have easier access to clothes and don’t pay extra for airplane seats. But thin privilege can be more subtle.
We can’t talk about the history of diet culture without mentioning one of its most dangerous agents: BMI. Body mass index (BMI) has long been used as a measure of health, but it is based on a very limited weight distribution study that compares people to Scottish and French soldiers (aka who Adolphe Quetelet felt represented the average person). That’s right. For decades, doctors have been comparing bodies of all different identities to the norms of young, white men. Surprising? Not really. Disturbing?
This has perpetuated a pervasive myth that a higher BMI automatically equates to poor health. However, the truth is far more complex. Contrary to popular belief, BMI has never been conclusively linked to any specific health consequence.
The Financial Incentive
If systems of oppression were the roots of diet culture, capitalism took it and ran. Businesses quickly recognized the immense profitability of exploiting people’s insecurities and creating a sense of dissatisfaction with their bodies. The financial figures associated with the diet industry are staggering. In the United States alone, citizens spend over $30 billion on diet products each year. This astronomical sum highlights the profitability and scale of this industry, as well as the extent to which individuals are willing to invest in the pursuit of their desired body image. On the contrary, research consistently shows that diets tend to be ineffective in achieving sustainable weight loss and can often have negative physical and psychological effects.
The real kicker? Diet culture is very sneaky. It disguises itself as health and fitness. In recent years, diet culture has been more and more criticized for over-valuing appearance.
Dismantling Diet Culture: A Path Forward
Understanding the origins of diet culture allows us to critically examine its impact and challenge its harmful effects. By fostering a caring, expert, and engaging dialogue, we can pave the way for a more weight-inclusive approach to health that celebrates diversity, rejects body shaming, and promotes genuine well-being for all individuals.
Here are some ways to dismantle your own biases and internalized beliefs in order to take an anti-racist approach to health, appearance, and weight:
- Acknowledge your own privilege, whether it be white privilege, thin privilege, rich privilege, or beyond
- Understand the ways in which your privilege has shaped your experience of the world and how people have treated you
- Educate yourself on HAES®
- Follow anti-racist and body-positive activists on social media
- Read anti-racist and body-positive books and resources, as well as listen to podcasts
- Don't accept diet culture and self-critical talk
- Speak out when you hear fatphobic comments
- Understand that eating disorders can occur in people of all shapes and sizes
- Challenge any eating disorder myths you may hear or encounter
- Read about the harms of the “obesity epidemic” and medicalizing people living in larger bodies
- Donate to the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) and other fat liberation efforts
Practical Steps to Combat Diet Culture
Taking an anti-racist approach to health, food, and body diversityFirst, it’s important to understand how systemic racism contributes to toxic diet culture, fatphobia, and healthism:
- Food deserts disproportionately affect people of color, preventing them from accessing affordable and nutritious food and increasing the risk of binge eating episodes (6)
- Black families and other people of color often live in neighborhoods rife with pollution, increasing the risk of many health conditions
- Many people of color may lack health insurance and subsequent access to quality care.
- Many people of color who do have access to healthcare experience racism (and weight stigma) in healthcare settings
- Systemic racism causes and exacerbates mental health disorders in people of color
These are just a few examples of the far-reaching consequences of systemic racism and its effect on the mental and physical well-being of people of color, especially Black folks.
Moving Beyond Diet Culture Diet culture is inherently traumatic for all of us. The multibillion-dollar diet industry titans work hard to profit from our trauma, kindling a fixation with thinness that can only be “achieved” through the use of their products or services, despite mountains of evidence that confirm it can never be a truly fruitful pursuit. Diet culture makes us feel like we’re the ones who failed when it really is a losing game from the start.
It can be incredibly difficult to get out of the paradigm of diet culture when it seems to be woven into the very fibers of our society. How can you tune out diet culture in your everyday life and get back to focusing on the things that matter to you?
1. Practice self-compassion through positive internal dialogue
The way you talk to yourself in the presence of diet culture can make the difference between shaking off the messages and getting sucked in. The shift away from diet culture is internal first. If you’ve dieted in the past or been around others preaching about their diets, there is a chance you hold negative thoughts about your appearance. Treating yourself with kindness, affirming your inherent worth, and reframing your relationship with your body are radical acts in the face of a system designed to be oppressive and punishing. What’s more, self-compassion interventions are associated with lower levels of disordered eating behaviors (Kelly & Tasca, 2016). It is going to take time and practice to escape diet culture’s grips. Try to notice when the diet culture voice is coming up for you and gently let it go.
2. Set boundaries
Nipping diet talk in the bud may start with putting a moratorium on diet talk with your family, or unfollowing friends on social media who constantly post about their diet results. Diet culture disconnects us from our own needs, so asking for and acting upon what we need is a powerful rebellion against it. If appropriate, you might consider sharing the ways you have been harmed by diet culture. Another option could be simply changing the subject or leaving the room. Remember that diet culture beliefs are often deeply ingrained and diet talk can be reflexive, so it may take time and reminders for the boundary to be enforced. Perhaps a personal boundary could be taking a social media break or working toward using social media less. We know that algorithms tend to push users toward harmful content that promotes eating disorders and body dissatisfaction. Keep yourself free of diet culture distractions.
3. Remind yourself who benefits from diet culture
We know that diet culture interventions are not sustainable or health-promoting over the long term. Companies that promote diet culture do not care about your well-being, your happiness, or your health. Their business is to turn a profit. Use this awareness to guide your own choices and muster compassion for those around you who may be caught up in the diet cycle. The more we empower ourselves with the knowledge of diet culture’s harms, the more empowered we become to shift the narrative for ourselves, and as a collective.
Consider what diet culture has taken from you, distracted you from, or caused you to miss out on. How has it shaped the way you view yourself and others? Freedom from diet culture and reconnection to your values is no easy feat, but it is such a worthwhile endeavor.
4. Rejecting Diet Culture
On the other hand, rejecting diet culture, celebrating bodies of all sizes and shapes, and adopting a Health at Every Size® (HAES®) framework is anti-racist and can help to dismantle detrimental societal beliefs.Major change doesn’t happen overnight-rather, change results from a continued effort and commitment to action. You can expect yourself to make mistakes and take missteps along the way, and that’s okay. What’s important is that you hold yourself accountable and don’t let yourself get distracted by harmful pursuits like dieting or losing weight.