This Isn’t the Advice You’re Looking For: Why We’re Not Talking About Diets

In the grand clash of ideologies between diet culture (pro-weight loss) and anti-diet culture (anti-weight loss), consider me Switzerland:

I’m diet-neutral. 

But that doesn’t mean I’ll dole out weight loss advice.

As I mentioned in my last article, My Problem With “Anti-Diet” and Why I’m “Diet-Neutral”, my philosophy on change embodies freedom of choice, acceptance, and autonomy. Therefore, I will not tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with your body.

However, there are a few reasons why I have not and will not be using my platform—this blog or any social media—to talk about how to successfully diet or lose weight.

Here’s why:

There’s Already Too Much Talk About Dieting

Everywhere you turn, there’s a magazine, ad, influencer, friend, colleague, family member, trainer, or product encouraging you to lose weight. The prevalence of weight loss ads, media, and conversations makes it seem like the default “solution” to your “problematic” body is to shrink it.

First off, the size of your body isn’t a problem.

Second, there’s WAY more to talk about and WAY more to do with your life than to attempt to change the way you look. Your appearance is not as important or interesting as diet culture would lead you to believe. 

Channeling your time, energy, and other resources into weight loss is robbing you of spending those resources on other areas of your life that are rich with meaning. And when you focus on value-based, purposeful life goals, they’ll provide you with the fulfillment that a preoccupation with your body never will.

The Benefits of Changing For the Sake of YOU

If you’re going to make changes to your eating habits or exercise routine, you’ll have much greater success if you approach change through a lens of self-care, healing, or prioritizing your health—independent of your weight. 

What I mean by “prioritizing your health independent of your weight” is changing your nutrition and movement patterns because you care about your health and well-being, NOT because your overt or covert goal is to lose weight. What this also means is, as you focus on health-promoting behaviors, you may lose, maintain, or gain weight, but regardless of what happens to the scale, your focus will remain on carrying out healthy behaviors.

Just a few of the benefits of a weight-neutral approach are: 

• Lower levels of disordered eating (say goodbye to behaviors such as binge eating, emotional eating, food preoccupation, skipping meals, sneaking food, exercising to “burn off” food)

• Lower levels of body image concerns (meaning less preoccupation with the way you look, and greater satisfaction and acceptance of your body)

• Lower psychological distress (including depression and anxiety)

• Higher self-esteem 

• Greater social support, and 

• Better quality of life (feeling that you’re meeting your goals, expectations, and standards)

While I’m not going to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with your body and whether you should or shouldn’t pursue weight loss…I believe it’s crucial to acknowledge the benefits of NOT focusing on your weight. When you do, it will be MUCH easier to achieve a healthy relationship with food and your body.

Now, in the interest of ultimate clarity, I have led a handful of students on to pursue weight loss after they confirmed feeling at peace with their food and body. I am never the one to initiate this process. However, if a student brings it up as their desire, we have a series of conversations about it. And when appropriate, I lead them through the weight loss process in a sustainable and healthy way that maintains the work we have done on their food, body, and self relationships. I will never risk a student’s relationship with food, their body image, or their sense of self-worth for the pursuit of weight loss.

In any case, the more you pursue behavior change as a means to care for yourself, as an expression of self-love and self-care, the better you will feel.

Diet Culture Can Be Dangerous

Diet culture refers to a set of beliefs that places a strong value on appearance, thinness, and shape—conflating thinness with health, well-being, and moral virtue.

Diet culture messaging includes “good” and “bad” foods, and the idea that we have less value or worth if we don’t fit the mold for the ideal body, which often results in feelings of shame.

The “ideal” body is often thin for women, and a lean, muscular build for men. Individuals can become dissatisfied with their own bodies if they don’t fit the ideal, and once fixated on achieving a different body shape or size, change their diet and exercise habits to do so, which can lead to disordered eating and eating disorders.

Additionally, a negative body image can lead to: 

• Increased risk of health problems (in addition to eating disorders) such as nutritional deficiencies and gastrointestinal disorders

• Decreased self-esteem/self-worth/self-confidence

• Social withdrawal

• Worsened mental health, including depression, anxiety, and suicidality, and

• Decreased sexual satisfaction

Simply put, I’m not willing to put the health and well-being of my wider audience at risk by promoting dieting.

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You might be wondering what that leaves us to talk about. There is so much more to delve into than dieting when it comes to food. Topics like:

• Recovering from disordered eating (learning how to stop behaviors like binge eating, fasting, cutting out food groups, skipping meals, etc.)

• Engaging consistently in health-promoting behaviors (such as exercising for pleasure, eating mindfully, getting plenty of sleep, etc.)

• Having a healthy relationship with exercise (building a desire to exercise because you enjoy it, rather than forcing yourself to do it or exercising to burn calories)

• Cultivating a positive body image (feeling satisfied and accepting of the way your body looks, appreciating and respecting your body) 

• Building self-confidence (trusting in your skills, abilities, and judgments)

• Developing a sense of unconditional self-worth (the sense that you deserve to be loved and cared for, to belong, to be treated with respect and kindness—regardless of your appearance, accomplishments, circumstances, etc.)

I find these themes to be infinitely more interesting, important, and valuable than what you weigh. And of course, they all have a stronger positive impact on your health and well-being than dieting.

These are the matters at the heart of Food Body Self.

The best I can sum up my aims is to say: 

Eat with love.

I cannot define what that looks like for you, but I’d love to support you in achieving the vision of eating with love that you create.