Food is such an important part of life, I mean we need it to be able to live and survive. My relationship with food has changed so much over the last years, that it’s had such a negative impact on the way I think. I know alot of you reading this will probably have had the same experience as me. And it all comes down to diet culture.
If you aren’t aware of what diet culture is, let me break it down for you. Diet culture refers to a set of beliefs that prioritises thinness, appearance and shape over genuine health and wellbeing. It makes the outward appearance of being smaller, and external factors more important than actually being healthy. And this is where the issue lies. Diet culture comes in all types of forms. Whether it’s your favourite social media influencers promoting tea to lose weight. Or your local slimming world/weight watchers groups. They all contribute to this culture of ‘diet’. Now before you think I am bashing those companies, thats not the case. But in my own personal experience, they are the reasons for my own issues with food. They contributed massively to it. And I’m sure there are so many other people out there who feel the same.
This post is part of a series of posts I am putting together all about food, and changing our eating habits. I recently started my own new lifestyle journey and I want to share that with you. I want to share how I am reversing everything I have learnt about food, and how I am improving my overall health and wellbeing. And I thought what better way to start this series than to start with the issue itself. Diet culture and food.
HOW IT ALL STARTED FOR ME
For my whole life I know I have been bigger than my peers. I am from Caribbean descent, which automatically makes my metabolism slower and my eating/hunger higher. Most of my family are on the bigger side, or struggle to lose weight. And with that, come various health problems too. I tend to go through phases of wanting to lose weight and be healthy. I went from diet to diet constantly trying to shift some pounds so that I could be smaller and more desirable.
Around 4/5 years ago I took the plunge and joined a local slimming world group. If you aren’t from the UK slimming world is just like weight watchers. It is a point system of sorts which puts foods into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ categories. You got 15 syns everyday, which you could use on whatever you wanted. Red flag number one. Who labels food as syns? The idea with slimming world is that you can eat as much fruit, veg, pasta, potatoes, low fat meat as you wanted. And then anything else must be synned. I did this plan for 6 months or so, and I lost 3 stone in total/19kg/42lbs. But it was never going to stay off, because that way of eating was never sustainable for me.
Of course, I put that weight back on and had to start again. During that time I lost all of that weight, I still really struggled with eating and my own body image. Just like any other time. Slimming world didn’t ever teach me that I could enjoy food, and it didn’t need to be labelled as a treat. It taught me that I needed to restrict the food I love to lose weight, which I know now is not the case at all. Food is food. And only now I am learning this.
You Might Also Like: Why Body Positivity is Important
MY NEW LIFESTYLE JOURNEY
Like alot of people, my relationship with food got even worse when we were locked down. Food was the only thing I had to look forward to, and because of this I gained weight like most of the world population during 2020. The thing that really tipped me over the edge though, was a recent health diagnosis. Which really made me consider the choices I was making. Gaining weight, and having your weight fluctuate is perfectly fine and normal. But for me, it meant that this health condition could get worse if I didn’t do something about it.
Which brings me to where I am today. Un-learning all of the diet culture nonsense I had programmed my brain to understand. Changing my relationship with food and becoming a better version of myself. Learning how food is food and its there to be enjoyed.
I’m not doing this alone though, I have the help of my wonderful online coach Ellie. Who is there with me every step of the way. Not only am I changing my relationship with food, but also my relationship with exercise and moving my body. I have never been in love with exercise until now. And I didn’t ever think I’d get to this stage in my life, and it truly feels so good.
You Might Also Like: 5 Tips to Get Healthier This Year
How has diet culture affected your relationship with food? Has diet culture impacted you?
Over the coming weeks I will be sharing more and more about my new lifestyle journey. And will get to a point where I share my before and after images and all of that good stuff. I hope you enjoy this up coming series and it gives an insight into how toxic diet culture can be for us.
Good for you for making positive change. It’s sad that our world makes people, especially women, feel like they have to conform to some unrealistic ideal. I struggled with weight as a young woman. Embracing exercise made all the difference. I look forward to hearing more about your journey. You’ve got this, Olivia!
It really is, I think both men and women have it hard, but women especially. From the moment we know about body image its forced down our throats to be slim and have a perfect figure!
Thanks so much for the encouragement Michelle! 🙂
I’ve suffered from 4 different eating disorders so I’m very sensitive to food restrictions and the manipulations of diet culture. It’s kept me from living a happy life for a long time. Actually, my next post is all about this 😅
I was hoping you commented on this!🙌🏻 Thats the exact reason why I’m doing it the right way and no restricting myself!
I’m so happy to hear that Olivia 💜
So excited for this series! I’m currently on a healthy lifestyle journey because the pandemic caused me to develop some bad habits around food. as you say, it was something to look forward to while the world was “falling apart”. I’ve been someone who not necessarily focuses on the number on the scale but the amount of energy i have throughout the day. it’s interesting to notice my weight hasn’t necessarily changed but my energy levels have improved. i wake up earlier & stopped taking so many naps etc…& I have more strength as well.
i really want to get healthier as i want to have children in a few years. i didn’t want to keep such bad habits like drinking tons of soda to hinder fertility / health of a baby as well.
I am excited for you to be on your journey too! I’m not focusing on the number on the scales either. Rather how I feel than anything else! Its good to think about your future too. 💚
Sorry to hear about your troubles with food. Diet culture is such a devastating thing. It takes the enjoyment out of eating and sets such unrealistic and unhealthy expectations. Food is so imporatnt for nourishing our bodies and making such it gets the right vitamins and nutrients for growth and development. It’s nice that you have found a way to break from the diet culture mindset and start to fall in love with food again. And isn’t exercise great. Yoga is what opened my eyes to enjoying exercising. Congrats on taking the steps to create a health focus lifestyle for yourself.
I really need to try getting into yoga. I tried it once but didn’t have much luck, but maybe I should try again!
I think maybe finding the right style of yoga will help. I am happy to provide links to different yoga channels on YouTube. That’s how I started.
So excited about the series <3
I am so glad you are talking about this toxic diet culture, before I used to think to lost weight I have to follow a strict 'diet' where I say no to all my favourite foods in order to lose those extra pounds. Although I never had to struggle with weight in my life but as I am growing up and the jeans sizes are getting bigger – I am feeling like I need to lose weight.
Its about trying to understand a 'one-size-look attractive' is not true. From influencers to celebrities -most of them don't look like their pictures.
Anyways -love this!
Food is food, and we should enjoy it all in moderation. It’s there for us to enjoy, and to nourish our bodies. I think we often forget that. I agree with what you said. The reason people give up on trying to lose weight is because they starve themselves of the food that they enjoy. Eating healthy doesn’t need to be like that! Its all about balance 🙂
You are amazing for taking on this challenge. I think diet culture has so eroded the way we think about and relate to food, changing our thinking is a lot like swimming against the tide. I can’t wait to read about your journey and will be rooting for you every step!
This is such a wholesome post, thank you for this. It’s a shame how much media can affect us, we need more people talking about such issues.