How to Ditch Diet Culture This Year
So here we are, solidly out of January and the pressure to change that comes along with the New Year, phew! Still, it’s hard to avoid diet culture messages that permeate our lives this time of year.
Face it, we live in a diet obsessed civilization that normalizes a dieting cycle and is fixated on weight. January 1st has become an annual kick off to dieting season. If you many people vowed to lose weight, join that gym, or stop eating all the foods you love this year, you are in good company!
Even if you have been a body positive devotee for a while – perhaps you have broken up with your scale and deleted all of your calorie counting apps – it’s easy to be seduced by the promise of a “better you”. Losing weight and exercising more have been the top 2 resolutions for as long as resolutions have existed. This should tell you something right there. If these resolutions and the actions that follow suit actually “worked”, people wouldn’t need to resolve to the same thing year after year.
Learning to protect yourself from diet culture and its harms may be the best gift you can give yourself. Improving your relationship with food might take a little unlearning but rejecting the status quo offers true lightening of the load minus feelings of shame and guilt.
Learn to recognize the dangerous messages of the diet mentality and autocorrect (aka redo).
Ready to ditch diet mentality?
- Recognize the danger of diet mentality, language and thoughts.
- Understand that health comes in all shapes and sizes.
- Become aware of how you talk to yourself about your body and food.
- Tune into your own body’s wisdom including food preferences and hunger cues.
Putting resolutions aside, perhaps inviting curiosity this year? What do you want more of for yourself this year? What do you want less of?
What does a well nourished mind, body, heart and soul mean to you? What messages do you want to take in that make you feel good and full of joy?
P.S. You are worthy and wise just the way you are.
