The Burden of Diet Culture

Why Companies Need to Prioritize Health Instead of Numbers

Trigger Warning: This text references eating disorders. Please visit the National Eating Disorders Association website if you or someone you know may be struggling.

If you were to ask a woman if she has ever been insecure about the size or shape of her body, chances are that she will say yes. Most girls my age, in their late teens and early twenties, have experienced feelings of disapproval regarding their physical appearance, thanks to today’s heavily skewed beauty standards.

With the increased use of social media and the internet to answer one’s questions regarding health, wellness, and fitness, many adolescents and young adults have fallen victim to listening to “diet culture:” a set of beliefs that promotes unhealthy eating and exercise habits in the name of staying thin.

Many online content creators as well as companies who make health supplements are large proponents of diet culture but are entirely unaware of the damage they are doing to today’s modern generation. The enthusiastic support of diet culture through social media, fitness apps, and society in general should be reduced for our generation’s mental and physical long-term health.

The promotion of diet culture online leads to disordered eating habits that last a lifetime. When you see food through the foggy lens of diet culture, you shift from viewing food as food and instead only see it as a statistic – number of calories, grams of fat, or hours of exercise.

Though it seems irrational, people develop concrete fears of foods that they think will lead to weight gain. When companies promote their newest supplement that suppresses appetites or their lowest calorie food, they are not taking into account the massive toll the constant advertisement of the pressure to be thin will have on people. Eating disorders are the second deadliest mental health disorder – it is a dangerously serious issue.

Courtesy of Very Well Fit

Not only does the promotion of these unrealistic beliefs take a huge toll on mental health, but most of the time, these suggestions are not always effective for weight loss or a healthy lifestyle.

Many weight loss programs advertise that eating merely 1200 calories a day will lead to effective weight loss, since being in a caloric deficit is a sure way to lose weight. For reference, a toddler requires about 1200 calories a day for healthy survival, let alone a growing adolescent or adult.

Unbeknownst to the major health effects that this could have, as a teenager, I too thought that eating a dangerously low number of calories per day would help me achieve my weight loss goals. 

Not only did I not lose weight as fast as I wanted to, but there was a variety of health issues that followed due to the lack of nutrients I was receiving. Like many other individuals who drastically cut their caloric intake for an extended period of time, I soon experienced a loss of circulation throughout my body (I would constantly feel cold and my limbs would fall asleep easily), I felt sluggish and irritable, and my resting heart rate dropped drastically. To me, none of these symptoms were worth any amount of weight that could be lost.

Companies and apps that force users to track their caloric intake as well as dozens of online creators promote extremely low-calorie diets which put the majority of people in a caloric deficit (consuming fewer calories per day than burning). This can lead to a drop in weight due to being such an extreme deficit, but it does not take into account other factors such as physical activity done by an individual, genetics, or body composition. Furthermore, consistently eating an obsessively low level of calories drops one’s metabolism to compensate for the lack of nutrients and can lead to dangerous, if not deadly, side effects. Thus, the idea of drastically cutting calories in the name of weight loss is not just unhealthy but futile. 

The current view of our society on food and exercise is extremely unhealthy, and the health standard needs to change. There is entirely too much promotion of being smaller rather than being healthier.

Companies and creators with considerable influence (and impressionable followings) need to modify their objectives to promote a sustainably healthy lifestyle. Endorsing fat loss teas, restrictive dieting, and absurd amounts of rigorous exercise that are supposedly supposed to help someone achieve their dream body end up doing more harm than good.

As members of this generation, we need to fight the modern-day beauty standard to make us feel healthy from the inside out rather than focusing only on our outward appearance. 

Featured image courtesy of Good Housekeeping