Diet culture has been likened to the air we breathe. A set of beliefs that’s so embedded in our culture that we don’t even recognize them.
Tara shares how she recognized diet culture. She used Byron Katie’s “The Work” by examining the question that was always running through her mind “I need to lose weight”. By investigating this stressful thought, Tara realized she had internalized diet culture.
When considering just some of the ways diet culture shows up in our lives, we can start to recognize it in our TV screens, magazines and social media accounts. We can also hear diet culture’s whispers when we hear “you look great” when someone has lost weight.
The most important thing we can do in our own relationship with food is to recognize diet culture as the origin of the thought “I need to lose weight”. We believe that thought because diet culture tells us that happiness and success comes in a thin body.
Christy Harrison’s definition of diet culture is so comprehensive. You can find it here.
Tara also mentions Annie Grace’s This Naked Mind. Annie Grace shares how confirmation bias affirms internal beliefs around drinking alcohol.
Identifying diet culture helps you to understand where the stressful thoughts around the need for weight loss came from. You’ve been given this message over and over. Once you can put the blame where it belongs, without needing to blame yourself, you can dissolve the belief that your body needs to be different in order for you to be happy.
You can find more about Byron Katie here. https://thework.com/