Diet culture refers to a widespread attitude toward food and our bodies that values weight above health and wellness. Eating for pleasure becomes shameful.
Now picture this: You’re looking for some motivation to get healthier and you come across hundreds of these ‘What I Eat in a Day’ posts, a hashtag that has 13.1 billion views on TikTok.
For starters, you must get on a steady diet of sinless, organic, gluten-free, low-carb, high-protein whole foods. Oh, and don’t forget to down eight glasses of water a day, track your macros and more.
Even if these videos mean well, the overall messaging always ends up sounding the same. That we need to make the right choice — the perfect choice — every time to achieve optimal health.
On the surface, ‘What I Eat in a Day’ videos appear almost harmless. But it’s a pervasive culture that’s damaging our relationship with food, exercise, and our own bodies.
The more we can identify what is diet culture and what isn’t, the better we can resist this system of oppression that normalizes manipulating your body to fit an ideal mold.