Toxic Diet Talk and "Health"

It's so ubiquitous that most of us don't even know we're doing it: diet talk. It's in commercials, it's at Christmas, it's in TV shows, it shows up every time we go grocery shopping. It's everything from innocent comments to well intentioned criticisms to malicious sneers.

Diet talk and diet normalization is the reason eating disorders numbers are on the rise in all demographics, and, alarmingly, the reason more and more young children are developing eating disorders.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be healthy. There's nothing wrong with wanting to treat your body well and give it what it needs and deserves. But "health" doesn't mean feeding your body kale and zucchini noodles. Health means giving your body what it wants as well as what it needs, which includes:

• The proper amounts of carbs, proteins, and fats. Without all three of these macronutrients, the brain stops functioning properly, the metabolism slows, and mood changes come often and abundantly. Restricting your intake of any one of these macronutrients is not conducive to long or short term health.
• Movement, but not necessarily exercise. Your body needs about thirty minutes of movement a day, and while we' re at it, for your mental health, that need is joyful movement. Moving isn't something everybody likes to do, but there are things that everybody enjoys that involve movement: few people enjoy going to the gym, but taking a walk with a friend, going to a gentle yoga class, dancing? Joyful movement is not excessive or punitive. Joyful movement is just that--joyful.
• Time to relax. You don't need to listen to nature sounds for thirty minutes or take up meditation (though meditation and mindfulness do have benefits for people both in recovery and not). Setting aside a bit of time each day to do something you really love--or not do anything at all--lowers your stress level and can reduce the chances of burnout.
• Practicing non-judgmental stance and self acceptance. Not shaming yourself for being the way you are is a crucial component of mental health.

Those being only a few components of multifaceted "health," why is diet talk bad for ours? Let's take it step by step.

• Carbs, proteins, and fats: diet talk and the diet industry often encourage us to restrict one aspect of our macronutrient intake. As aforementioned, this slows down many of the body's essential processes. While it may (or may not!) lead to short term weight loss, weight loss in the long term by restriction of essential nutrients is not sustainable. Besides, eating food you like that may not have the greatest concentration of micronutrients is far more enjoyable than restricting.
• Movement: diet talk ditches joyful movement in favor of strenuous and often tedious exercise. While people certainly can legitimately enjoy running, pilates, and other popular "exercises," let's be real here: most people don't. Overexercising can hurt your body more than it can help it (especially in conjunction with a restrictive diet), and what's more you're not even enjoying it. 
• Relaxation: this one isn't diet talk so much as our culture, which encourages constant busy-ness. We hold in our minds this shared yet invalid idea that unless we're constantly doing something, we're useless as people. This leads to high stress among the population, which is known to shrink the brain, increase depressive symptoms, and raise stroke risk--among other things. 
• Non-Judgmental Stance and Self Acceptance: diet talk perpetuates this idea that unless we are constantly disappearing, unless we are constantly losing weight and ceaselessly trying to "get thinner/leaner" or "fit a size x again". People are measured not by the size of their waist but by their personality. Going to the store and looking at foods you "can't eat because you're on a diet" doesn't help you, it doesn't help the people around you, and in the end, it does more harm than good to you and your interactive environment: by not accepting yourself, you not only deprive yourself of the self-peace needed to live a truly healthy life, you present to others that they should feel that way, too--whether or not you mean it. 

Now that we've tackled that, how can we tackle our use of diet talk?

It's a big concept to try cutting out completely. Diet talk and the diet industry are unconsciously an enormous parts of our lives. We don't bat an eye when someone says they're "cleansing" or "need to lose a dress size." We don't think twice when we see low-carb advertisements on television or Nutrisystem launch a diet plan specifically for teenagers or that sitcom crack a fat joke. But we do need to do something about it--if we don't we're encouraging others, including our posterity, to hate themselves and their bodies.

Let me repeat that.

If we don't change the way we talk about food and our bodies, we're encouraging others, including our posterity, to hate themselves and their bodies.

Let's get to some real solutions:

1. Stop the fat talk. Stop telling yourself and those around you that you're fat because you wear a certain size or you need to lose weight. Stop perpetuating the idea that you "need" to fit into some mold to be an acceptable human being.

2. Stop judging others based on their appearance. This one might be self-explanatory, but it's also easier said than done.

3.  Be conscious. Think about what you're saying. If you catch yourself talking about that low-fat diet you saw on the 3-am infomercial the other night when you couldn't sleep, just stop. Stop right there. Be conscious of your environment, too. Maybe it's not funny to talk about how you wore your "fat pants" to Thanksgiving--maybe everyone else is trying to enjoy themselves and doesn't want to feel their own shame about food come up.

4. Don't promote the thin ideal. I had a good friend in treatment who used to say that she wanted it to be a part of her identity: she doesn't promote the thin ideal--the notion that thinner is better. So don't promote the thin ideal either. Raise a big middle finger to the thin ideal. 

5. Start working on learning to love yourself. Another thing easier said than done, but beginning to work towards self-acceptance and self-love is setting an example for others that they are enough. You don't need to lose that extra couple of inches or couple of pounds. You don't need to be anything different than you are. 

It will be hard. But it will be worth it.