Throughout history, society has always upheld one specific view of what a “healthy body” looks like. This is promoted by eating select food groups and over-exercising to appeal to the eye of the national community. Typically, but not always, this is more emphasized in women, who are encouraged to appeal to the male gaze. This is called diet culture.
Not only does diet culture tell us that healthy bodies only come in one shape and size, but it promotes weight loss over overall health, establishing a standard that having a thinner or more fit body type makes you more of a valuable person. To add, this pushes a one-size-fits-all approach to nutrition, which will not be sustainable for every person on this planet. This normalizes restrictive eating and guilt around food, which ultimately leads to disordered eating patterns. By demonizing larger bodies, diet culture stigmatizes weight, and ignores the fact that larger bodies can still be healthy.
Throughout recent years, diet culture has seeped its way through to adolescents, pressuring them to fit unrealistic body standards throughout their growing years. During the Covid pandemic, there was a prominent spike in eating disorders seen in teens, and even preteens. Additionally, overexposure to social media apps such as Tiktok and Instagram may contribute to this negative body image that comes with diet culture. This is comparable to the “Tumblr aesthetic” many teenage girls were exposed to in the late 2010s. This aesthetic glamorized restricted eating, and being unhealthily underweight. This obsession with achieving the “perfect” body often results in restrictive eating habits, excessive exercise, and a constant feeling of not being good enough, which can have lifelong physical and mental health consequences. Overall, diet culture harms the youth by promoting unhealthy body image during the years when kids need to fuel themselves in order to grow in a healthy manner.
It’s important to acknowledge that caring about health is not bad—choosing to cut out certain foods to improve gut health, brain function, or overall well-being is completely valid. However, when the focus shifts from health to weight loss, it can easily inspire disordered eating. The idea that being skinny automatically means being healthy is a harmful misconception. People of all body sizes can be healthy, just as they can be unhealthy. Promoting weight loss as the ultimate goal rather than overall well-being only fuels body dissatisfaction and unhealthy behaviors, especially among impressionable adolescents.
A better approach is embracing intuitive eating, body neutrality, and promoting health at every size. Intuitive eating encourages listening to hunger cues rather than following restrictive diets, while body neutrality shifts the focus from appearance to what the body can do. It’s also essential to recognize that eating “unhealthy” foods in moderation is completely normal and should not be demonized. Food is fuel, but it’s also a source of comfort and enjoyment. Eating should be seen as an act of self-care, not a punishment or a measure of worth. No one should neglect their body just to conform to society’s ever-changing beauty standards.
