Diet culture is exhausting and robs us of emotional energy. Anti-diet culture is also exhausting and robs us of emotional energy. Conclusion: I am tired.
you nailed it Hag. I could not agree more! Live and let live is so very lacking these days, but the less time we spend on social media the more effortless that is. At least for me.
Thank you for saying out loud what I've been afraid to acknowledge publicly. (What if the anti-diet culture people come for me for.. not being sufficiently anti-diet culture!?). I had to step away when budgeting was deemed the same as diet culture and when posting a workout selfie was called an expression of ableism.
The budgeting thing is impossible to understand - until you find out she's got a massive trust fund.
Your fear is sadly, probably a bit warranted. We are made afraid to have real dialogue which just isolates and exhausts us further. it diminishes us individually and as a collective. No time for that in this red-pilled era.
Yep... I'm so sick of this you're with us or you're against us mentality. And it's sickening to me that some of the most "progressive" people are just as uninterested in nuance as many on the far right.
Didn't know about the trust fund but that would track. How did you verify that's true?
Oh my word, I just read your essay,"Is Anti-Diet Culture Eating Itself" and I think my head exploded! (Note: this is A. Good. Thing.) Just wow to your analysis and it nails things that have been bugging me for a while about whether all of this cat-calling is just more 'divide and rule'; or these days, 'divide and sell'.... Thank you, have followed and subscribed!
I just found this, I’ve been feeling the same way about the anti diet culture. I joined some intuitive eating groups to help me after I had heavily restricted my food and over exercised in lockdown and become quite unwell with it all, but they were even more controlling. I posted a jokey thing about how my 6 year old would say “mummy’s big fat bum” sometimes and got attacked and told I needed to force my son not to make these comments ever as he was participating in diet culture… I left all the groups and got some counselling instead. Now I just try and find balance where I can.
Exhausted on your behalf, Raffy. Sorry that the support turned into a bunch of shaming, but glad you found your way to a therapist.
Women will never get out from under this societal trash if we don't stop replicating it and putting it on each other. I can't stop thinking about something I read last year: that men are conditioned for open conflict and women are conditioned to police conformity.
<also: isn't the point also to reclaim and reframe "fat" as a word and a concept? but I digress. >
Well this is what I thought re the word fat, I think that they took umbrage with him being male, even though he was so little. I feel that a lot of the people in that group were desperately clinging onto a new dogma, a new way to control their eating rather than letting go and finding peace somehow. Using techniques designed to help anorexia sufferers to escape their obsessive eating patterns and applying them to everyone. Words were banned, topics controlled extremely harshly, there was no freedom of discussion. Conformity is the correct word yes and it was heeeeavily policed.
Yes to all of this! I hesitate to focus my critique on the anti diet culture world by using more buzzwords, but i keep coming back to the trends I see that are ableist and racist. I and many people have health conditions impacted by the food we eat. Sometimes flax seeds are just an easy way ti get enough fiber to poop, sometimes adding protein to meals really does help me manage my blood sugar! I exercise because it’s one of the few things that helps manage my POTS symptoms. It takes someone really healthy to cling to the idea that eating foods that have somehow played a role in diet culture automatically means I am supporting diet culture. (Orthorexia amongst chronically ill people is in fact a huge problem, but vilifying all nutrition interventions is not going to solve it.) Then, there’s this trend to vilify anyone using food/herbs to improve their health because “food isn’t medicine, medicine is medicine.” Of course we should be skeptical of essential oil multi level marketing, but non-white cultures have successfully used plants as part of healing traditions for WAY longer than a few white people realized that diet culture was bad. When your revolution ends up largely promoting foods and medicines made by large corporations it’s time to take a step back and reflect on whether you have been co-opted by capitalism. And of COURSE here’s my caveat that eating processed foods and taking medicine can also be a good thing, because the internet will read any attempt at nuance and accuse me of supporting RFK.
I hear you Sarah! Nuance is a rare commodity these days and you could spend 80% of any post or comments on caveats... and still get someone finding a fault or making an assertion.
In life - especially in things like health - it's not even "both things can be true" it's many things can be true because bodies are so unique and the blunt instruments we use to sell stuff are not adequate. We need to give a lot more space and grace. But really, the attacks on others often just shout out our own insecurities. I know they do for me!
Thanks for reading it. It's a weird place to try to defend sides you don't philosophically agree with and to seemingly call out one you generally do, but sometimes that's where I find myself.
I can relate to having been in your ‘position’ throughout my lifetime. What I’ve come to find is that people - like you- are generally more nuanced, our behaviors complex, and not as binary as we ‘think’ they out to be. I commend you for speaking up and saying that- personally I have read most of the content you mentioned and found it reductive of humans, policing of women and rooted in judgment. I’m also the woman they are assuming workouts and eats the way she does because thinness is societal acceptance/or that I’m ‘sick’, that there isn’t any agency nor that it’s done for health reasons beyond all of that.
I also find it ironic that as anti capitalist they are doubling down on anti-fill in the blank -because they know that’s how they will sell their beliefs aka product.
There's one more factor here that complicates the story but I didn't want my post to be book length.
The NYT article with Sole-Smith also noted that she comes from substantial generational wealth.
While I know other trust-funded people who come across as far less affluent than they are, it is a different thing to present as less societally attractive with Eff You money. It's been proven for both genders that physical attractiveness is linked to more money and opportunity.
Money gives you more autonomy over your days, not just your body.
It's a different thing to have the resources to pay for services your household and kids or to choose your health habits. Much different than not having the time or money to work out, buy and prep more expensive food, go to therapy, pursue rest or hobbies, etc. When you don't, food often looks like the most convenient or available self-care.
Granted, many people are under-resourced and in great shape or eat really well.
I'm not saying it's easy to live in this world as a heavy person period.
It's simply easier to buck any status quo when money is not a barrier.
And it's really easy to be anti-capitalist when the bills are always paid.
Looking forward to your audio version so I can listen on my way to work, and because I know your voice will bring it to a whole new level (it will be in your voice right?)
Diet culture is exhausting and robs us of emotional energy. Anti-diet culture is also exhausting and robs us of emotional energy. Conclusion: I am tired.
Thanks for posting this!
you nailed it Hag. I could not agree more! Live and let live is so very lacking these days, but the less time we spend on social media the more effortless that is. At least for me.
Thank you for saying out loud what I've been afraid to acknowledge publicly. (What if the anti-diet culture people come for me for.. not being sufficiently anti-diet culture!?). I had to step away when budgeting was deemed the same as diet culture and when posting a workout selfie was called an expression of ableism.
The budgeting thing is impossible to understand - until you find out she's got a massive trust fund.
Your fear is sadly, probably a bit warranted. We are made afraid to have real dialogue which just isolates and exhausts us further. it diminishes us individually and as a collective. No time for that in this red-pilled era.
Yep... I'm so sick of this you're with us or you're against us mentality. And it's sickening to me that some of the most "progressive" people are just as uninterested in nuance as many on the far right.
Didn't know about the trust fund but that would track. How did you verify that's true?
i’m so late to this but omg 🤯 when you see it written down it makes so much sense but you’ve genuinely blown my mind xx
Well, the same dynamic is still going strong. So your arrival is still right on time !
Oh my word, I just read your essay,"Is Anti-Diet Culture Eating Itself" and I think my head exploded! (Note: this is A. Good. Thing.) Just wow to your analysis and it nails things that have been bugging me for a while about whether all of this cat-calling is just more 'divide and rule'; or these days, 'divide and sell'.... Thank you, have followed and subscribed!
https://bizofwomen.substack.com/p/is-anti-diet-culture-eating-itself
Thank you Jody. It's complicated and I'm really not taking sides - just observing how weird it can get
Thanks for the shout out!
Glad I saw your post in notes :)
This is great
I just found this, I’ve been feeling the same way about the anti diet culture. I joined some intuitive eating groups to help me after I had heavily restricted my food and over exercised in lockdown and become quite unwell with it all, but they were even more controlling. I posted a jokey thing about how my 6 year old would say “mummy’s big fat bum” sometimes and got attacked and told I needed to force my son not to make these comments ever as he was participating in diet culture… I left all the groups and got some counselling instead. Now I just try and find balance where I can.
Exhausted on your behalf, Raffy. Sorry that the support turned into a bunch of shaming, but glad you found your way to a therapist.
Women will never get out from under this societal trash if we don't stop replicating it and putting it on each other. I can't stop thinking about something I read last year: that men are conditioned for open conflict and women are conditioned to police conformity.
<also: isn't the point also to reclaim and reframe "fat" as a word and a concept? but I digress. >
Well this is what I thought re the word fat, I think that they took umbrage with him being male, even though he was so little. I feel that a lot of the people in that group were desperately clinging onto a new dogma, a new way to control their eating rather than letting go and finding peace somehow. Using techniques designed to help anorexia sufferers to escape their obsessive eating patterns and applying them to everyone. Words were banned, topics controlled extremely harshly, there was no freedom of discussion. Conformity is the correct word yes and it was heeeeavily policed.
Yes to all of this! I hesitate to focus my critique on the anti diet culture world by using more buzzwords, but i keep coming back to the trends I see that are ableist and racist. I and many people have health conditions impacted by the food we eat. Sometimes flax seeds are just an easy way ti get enough fiber to poop, sometimes adding protein to meals really does help me manage my blood sugar! I exercise because it’s one of the few things that helps manage my POTS symptoms. It takes someone really healthy to cling to the idea that eating foods that have somehow played a role in diet culture automatically means I am supporting diet culture. (Orthorexia amongst chronically ill people is in fact a huge problem, but vilifying all nutrition interventions is not going to solve it.) Then, there’s this trend to vilify anyone using food/herbs to improve their health because “food isn’t medicine, medicine is medicine.” Of course we should be skeptical of essential oil multi level marketing, but non-white cultures have successfully used plants as part of healing traditions for WAY longer than a few white people realized that diet culture was bad. When your revolution ends up largely promoting foods and medicines made by large corporations it’s time to take a step back and reflect on whether you have been co-opted by capitalism. And of COURSE here’s my caveat that eating processed foods and taking medicine can also be a good thing, because the internet will read any attempt at nuance and accuse me of supporting RFK.
I hear you Sarah! Nuance is a rare commodity these days and you could spend 80% of any post or comments on caveats... and still get someone finding a fault or making an assertion.
In life - especially in things like health - it's not even "both things can be true" it's many things can be true because bodies are so unique and the blunt instruments we use to sell stuff are not adequate. We need to give a lot more space and grace. But really, the attacks on others often just shout out our own insecurities. I know they do for me!
👏👏👏 thank you for sharing this
Thanks for reading it. It's a weird place to try to defend sides you don't philosophically agree with and to seemingly call out one you generally do, but sometimes that's where I find myself.
I can relate to having been in your ‘position’ throughout my lifetime. What I’ve come to find is that people - like you- are generally more nuanced, our behaviors complex, and not as binary as we ‘think’ they out to be. I commend you for speaking up and saying that- personally I have read most of the content you mentioned and found it reductive of humans, policing of women and rooted in judgment. I’m also the woman they are assuming workouts and eats the way she does because thinness is societal acceptance/or that I’m ‘sick’, that there isn’t any agency nor that it’s done for health reasons beyond all of that.
I also find it ironic that as anti capitalist they are doubling down on anti-fill in the blank -because they know that’s how they will sell their beliefs aka product.
But that’s the game.
That it is.
There's one more factor here that complicates the story but I didn't want my post to be book length.
The NYT article with Sole-Smith also noted that she comes from substantial generational wealth.
While I know other trust-funded people who come across as far less affluent than they are, it is a different thing to present as less societally attractive with Eff You money. It's been proven for both genders that physical attractiveness is linked to more money and opportunity.
Money gives you more autonomy over your days, not just your body.
It's a different thing to have the resources to pay for services your household and kids or to choose your health habits. Much different than not having the time or money to work out, buy and prep more expensive food, go to therapy, pursue rest or hobbies, etc. When you don't, food often looks like the most convenient or available self-care.
Granted, many people are under-resourced and in great shape or eat really well.
I'm not saying it's easy to live in this world as a heavy person period.
It's simply easier to buck any status quo when money is not a barrier.
And it's really easy to be anti-capitalist when the bills are always paid.
The plot thickens!!!!
Looking forward to your audio version so I can listen on my way to work, and because I know your voice will bring it to a whole new level (it will be in your voice right?)