As a Body Empowerment coach who works with women with becoming at peace with their bodies, and being comfortable in their own skin, I talk a lot about Diet and Society Culture.
So, what is Diet Culture, anyway? Diet Culture is a system of beliefs that values, weight, size, shape and physical characteristics of our bodies over actual well being. It teaches us to place labels on foods, (good vs bad, clean vs dirty, etc) AND it teaches us that some bodies are good and others aren't.
Diet Culture also encourages us to define our self worth based on our physical appearance; it's currently a 60 billion dollar industry that encourages us to go on diets that fail over 95% of the time.
Diet Culture doesn't just affect large framed women; over 90% of women aren't happy with the way their bodies look, no matter what their size; I know because I was once a victim of diet culture; and that is why I am so passionate about helping women to become Empowered in their bodies so they can be on the path to self discovery.
How you can reframe your thinking from Diet Culture: Pay attention to where you see Diet Culture showing up in your life. You maybe want to journal on this experience... Does it come across to you in forms of judgement, restriction? Or, maybe placing impossible demands and expectations on yourself? The first step is awareness; and the beautiful thing is through awareness we can start to shift these beliefs and learn to honor and take care of our bodies from a true place of self love and compassion.
Here's some more questions to journal on:
How does Diet Culture make you feel about your body and the food you eat?
And how does that make you feel about yourself?
How have you seen Diet Culture impact others in your life?
What do do right now: start to unfollow any type of social media that makes you feel less than; engage in conversation that uplifts you instead of drains you!