Dieting is so deeply ingrained in our culture that we have failed to notice three vital facts: 1) diets have been proven ineffective at sustained weight loss; 2) diets typically lead to weight gain; 3) diets often lead to disordered eating.
The reason diets are so ingrained in our culture is that the weight stigma, driven and nurtured by the $65 billion diet industry. Weight stigma tells us that we can and should lose weight. It tells us that people who are in larger bodies are less worthy, lazy, and responsible for their high body weight.
The diet industry spends billions of dollars in direct advertising campaigns and funds research to “prove” their claims. But no long-term, large-scale scientific research proves that intentional weight loss is effective. About 95% of people who intentionally lose weight regain the weight in 2-5 years, often plus more. They also have a slowed metabolism and any health gains observed during weight loss are eliminated.
If you have a child who has an eating disorder, think back. Do you remember how it started? There’s a good chance that your child started their eating disorder with a diet, often cloaked in the term “healthy lifestyle.” They started restricting calories and cut out food groups, and probably started exercising in pursuit of “health.” But where did that pursuit get them? It got them sick. Diet culture and eating disorders are linked.
We would like to live in a world in which no children ever diet. Ever. We believe this will help reduce the rising rates of both obesity and eating disorders. Will you join us? Please check out this video we created to provide you with some more information about the dangers of dieting.
Non-Diet/Health At Every Size® Fact Sheets, Guidelines, and Scripts
- Fact Sheets About Weight Stigma, Diet Culture, Kids and Diets, and More
- Non-Diet Parent Guidelines
- Non-Diet Parent Scripts About Responding to Fat Talk, Diet Talk, and More
- What to Say/Not Say When Talking About Bodies and Food
Ginny Jones is on a mission to change the conversation about eating disorders and empower people to recover. She’s the founder of More-Love.org, an online resource supporting parents who have kids with eating disorders, and a Parent Coach who helps parents supercharge their kid’s eating disorder recovery.
Ginny has been researching and writing about eating disorders since 2016. She incorporates the principles of neurobiology and attachment parenting with a non-diet, Health At Every Size® approach to health and recovery.
Ginny’s most recent project is Recovery, a newsletter for deeply feeling people in recovery from diet culture, negative body image, and eating disorders.
[…] I’m trying to lose weight: Your body is a perfectly balanced organism, and you don’t need to control it or diet. Dieting often leads to weight gain and eating disorders. Your body naturally adjusts and changes […]
[…] eating disorders, so our main goal as parents of children living in larger bodies is to help them never, ever diet, which means we need to help them accept their weight, whatever it […]
[…] the nasty, nasty world of the diet industry. It’s sickening. It’s terrifying. And it is very, very tempting for anyone with a […]
[…] eating disorders, so our main goal as parents of children living in larger bodies is to help them never, ever diet, which means we need to help them accept their weight, whatever it […]
[…] I’m trying to lose weight: Your body is a perfectly balanced organism, and you don’t need to control it or diet. Dieting often leads to weight gain and eating disorders. Your body naturally adjusts and changes […]
[…] the food industry has continued to deliver tastier, cheaper, and more easily available food, the $70 billion diet industry has simultaneously arisen to convince us that eating is something about which we should feel deeply […]
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