The diet industry is a pervasive force in modern society, shaping our perceptions of health, beauty, and self-worth. With an estimated 45 million Americans dieting each year and the weight-loss market reaching a historic peak of $90 billion in 2023, it's crucial to understand what the diet industry is, how it has evolved, and its impact on individuals and society.
Defining the Diet Industry
At its core, the diet industry is a multifaceted business that promotes and sells products and services aimed at weight loss and management. This includes diet plans, supplements, books, exercise programs, and various other offerings. The industry thrives on the societal belief that thinness equates to health and desirability, creating a culture where individuals are constantly striving to achieve an "ideal" body type.
Diet culture is the belief that if we want to be more desirable, worthy, and good, then we should make our bodies smaller by dieting. It's dangerous and harms people of all sizes, including by perpetuating disordered eating and making eating disorder recovery all the more challenging.
A Historical Perspective on Diet Culture
The concept of dieting is not new. Before modern food preservation and transportation, people ate local, seasonal foods out of necessity. However, the idea of dieting for aesthetic purposes emerged in the mid-1800s, with the rise of "ideal body types."
- Early Influences: Lord Byron, considered the most beautiful man in the Victorian era, popularized a diet of starvation and vinegar consumption. The frail, thin image of the Victorian era was further popularized by Empress Elizabeth Amelie Wittelsbach of Austria.
- The First Low-Carb Diet: In 1825, Billat-Savarin argued against obesity as a disease, suggesting it was a lifestyle byproduct and advocating for avoiding bread, flour-based foods, and sugary and starchy foods.
- Early 20th Century Fad Diets: "Fletcherism," which involved chewing food excessively, gained popularity in the early 1900s.
Today, the term "diet" has shifted from its original meaning to refer to various methods of restricting food intake.
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The Evolution of Diet Culture
The diet industry has undergone significant transformations over time, adapting to changing societal norms and scientific understanding.
- Reframing the Message: As awareness of the ineffectiveness of diets grew, the industry rebranded itself, focusing on "health" and "wellness" rather than solely on weight loss. The booming business that is the diet industry has realized that it must somehow get Millenials on the diet train, and that, along with everyone finding out diets don’t work, has led to “The Wellness Diet.”
- The Wellness Diet: This modern guise of diet culture emphasizes "clean eating," detoxes, and elimination diets, often masking restrictive practices under the guise of health. "The Wellness Diet is my term for the sneaky, modern guise of diet culture that’s supposedly about ‘wellness’ but is actually about performing a rarefied, perfectionistic, discriminatory idea of what health is supposed to look like,” says Christy Harrison in her article, “How to Avoid Falling for The Wellness Diet.”
- Social Media's Influence: Social media has amplified diet culture, with influencers and celebrities promoting unrealistic body standards and various diet trends.
The False Equation of Thin Equals Healthy
Weight stigma, which refers to negative attitudes, beliefs, or assumptions about others based on body weight or size, is so firmly entrenched in our culture that even healthcare professionals can find themselves misdiagnosing people in larger bodies. The diet industry perpetuates the false notion that thinness automatically equates to health. This ignores the complexities of individual health, which is influenced by genetics, lifestyle, and other factors. More weight-inclusive approaches, such as Health at Every Size (HAES), promote a holistic version of health that is not defined by size, ability, illnesses, or any other trait.
- Health at Every Size (HAES): This approach promotes well-being at every size, shifting the focus from weight loss to sustainable, health-promoting behaviors. HAES is rooted in the belief that regardless of size, everyone is able to reach health and find joy in the process.
The Dangers of Diet Culture
Diet culture can have detrimental effects on both physical and mental health.
- Dieting Doesn't Work: Repeated cycles of weight loss and weight gain (weight cycling) has also been shown to lead to increased cardiovascular risks. Ninety-five percent of dieters who lose weight regain it within one to five years.
- Eating Disorders: Those who engage in moderate dieting are five times more likely to develop an eating disorder and those who engage in extreme dieting are 18 times more likely to develop an eating disorder (Patton, Selzer, Coffey, et al., 1999). Diet culture is dangerous for people of all sizes, and particularly dangerous to those predisposed for, currently suffering with, or recovering from eating disorders.
- Weight Stigma: Diet culture perpetuates weight bias and discrimination, leading to negative attitudes and stereotypes about people in larger bodies.
- Negative Body Image: The constant pursuit of an unattainable ideal can lead to body dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, and mental health issues.
- Health Risks: Weight cycling, a common result of dieting, has been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and all-cause mortality.
Resisting Diet Culture
Challenging diet culture requires a multifaceted approach that promotes body acceptance, intuitive eating, and critical thinking.
- Focus Inward: Remember that only you are an expert on your body and your unique levels of hunger, fullness, and satisfaction.
- Intuitive Eating: This approach involves trusting your body's natural cues for hunger and fullness, rather than following external diet rules.
- Challenge Subconscious Beliefs: Examine the ways that weight stigma and diet culture have shaped your view of health, nutrition, and fitness; look closely, because you’ve likely been impacted even if you think you haven’t. By building an awareness of how diet culture appears in your own life, you can label it when it shows up, and this simple act can strip diet culture thoughts of some of their power.
- Diversify Your Social Media Feeds: Remove content that makes you feel bad about yourself and follow people of all body sizes and shapes.
- Seek Weight-Inclusive Care: Find healthcare providers who focus on health-promoting behaviors rather than weight loss.
- Promote Media Literacy: Critically analyze media messages and challenge unrealistic body ideals.
- Script Responses to Shut Down Body Talk: Creating pre-written responses, or scripts, to shut down body talk, set boundaries, and redirect conversations is a powerful way to push back on diet culture.
The Anti-Diet Movement
The "anti-diet" movement gained traction in the early twenty-first century. Mainly spread by social media influencers, including some dietitians who were compensated by the food industry for sharing those views, anti-diet messaging encouraged people to stop dieting altogether. By espousing messages that denounced "food shaming" and society's obsession with weight, and encouraging people to not worry about eating processed foods, anti-diet views resulted in essentially shifting the focus away from the food industry that manufactured ultra-processed foods. Critics of the movement warned, however, that such messaging encouraged unhealthy behaviors in people with serious diseases like diabetes.
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Seeking Help
If your focus on food, weight, or body shape begins to severely disrupt your daily life, relationships, and emotional well-being, it's important to seek help.
- Registered Dietitians: Consult with a registered dietitian for personalized nutrition guidance.
- Therapists: Seek therapy to address body image issues and disordered eating patterns.
- Eating Disorder Professionals: Connect with eating disorder professionals for specialized treatment.
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