Category: Diet Culture And Eating Disorders

If you have a daughter, then you can and should protect her from diet culture. While this isn’t one of the things most of us think about when we have a child, it has become critically important as body hate, disordered eating, and eating disorders are on the rise. 

Women in our society are constantly told to control their hunger and weigh less. Diet culture indoctrination begins early in a girl’s life. As a result, most kindergarten girls will tell you they don’t want to be fat because being fat is bad. They already believe that the path to not being fat and bad is to eat less and exercise more. 

All of this pressure and noise about women’s bodies begins early in our daughters’ lives. Over time it flourishes and often blossoms into body dissatisfaction, dieting, disordered eating, and eating disorders.

But you can protect your daughter from diet culture. You can help her respect her body and live a healthy life. Here are five steps to doing it:

1. Educate yourself

Begin by learning about weight stigma and weight cycling. These are the major problems associated with diet culture and weight stigma and are therefore a key way to protect your daughter from them.

Weight stigma is discrimination against fat people and being fat. It’s closely aligned with racism, classism, and sexism. When internalized, it turns into body hate – the belief that your body (and by extension you yourself) is bad if you have fat. Weight stigma is strongly associated with disordered eating.

Next, dieting predicts weight cycling. While the $70 billion diet industry sells the promise of lasting weight loss, the truth is that while many people can lose weight initially when dieting, most gain it back, often plus more, 2-5 years later. Weight cycling is associated with poor cardiometabolic health.  

Finally, dieting is predictive of weight gain and eating disorders. In other words, it’s not healthy and does the opposite of what it promises. 

Take some time to learn about the truth about intentional weight loss, and once you’re ready, start educating your kids. This is a great way to protect our daughters from diet culture. Teach them: 

1. Diet culture is rooted in discrimination, racism, classism, and sexism

2. Dieting is not actually healthy for our bodies, and in fact predicts weight gain

3. The $70 billion diet industry creates and profits off body dissatisfaction and weight stigma

Our children deserve to know the truth about diet culture and weight stigma, and it’s unlikely they’ll learn it out in the wild. This is something that needs to come from you.

2. A body-positive household

Most households are living with some form of weight stigma and/or diet culture. Maybe you actively diet every January. Or maybe you are naturally thin but constantly talk about your aunt, who is naturally fat, as someone who needs to “take care of herself,” by which you mean “lose weight.” 

There are so many ways that we accidentally promote weight stigma and diet culture in our homes, and I’m not here to criticize you for doing any of these very normal things in the past. Truly. I get it. I lived it! 

But I am asking you to give it up now that you know better. Here are the beliefs that a body-positive household adheres to: 

1. Nobody should be criticized or shamed for their body at any weight.

2. You can take good care of your health without focusing on weight as an outcome or result.

3. Health includes physical, mental, social, and emotional factors. It cannot be determined or measured by weight.

4. There is no body size that deserves more or less respect. All bodies deserve respect at any weight.

A body-positive household will protect your daughter against diet culture because she will live in a pro-body environment rather than an environment that shames and criticizes bodies. At the heart of body positivity is dignity. All human beings deserve the dignity of living in their bodies without criticism or judgment.

3. An anti-diet approach

Once you know all of this, the next step is to institute an anti-diet policy at home. This means that barring any medical restrictions for medically-diagnosed allergies or diseases, nobody should be restricting food. This includes all forms of food restriction and banning foods for any reason other than that you don’t like them.

This is a revolutionary way to live and can be scary for anyone who has been following diet rules for most of their lives (e.g. most of us!). My greatest assurance for you is that following an anti-diet lifestyle will give you and your children greater freedom and better health – both physical and mental. 

An anti-diet lifestyle is also protective against eating disorders and disordered eating. One study found that girls are up to 18x more likely to develop an eating disorder if they diet. And girls are more likely to diet if they live in a home in which dieting is modeled and permitted. That fact alone should be enough to encourage you to implement a no-diet rule in your home. 

Hundreds of studies have found that Intuitive Eating, which is a way of eating that is responsive to hunger and appetite, is healthier than any type of diet. It may surprise you to know that weight-loss diets do not improve cardiovascular fitness long-term, but Intuitive Eating does.

The important thing is that nobody in the home should be actively trying to control, manage, or lose weight. It is important to get rid of household scales and any other tools that are used for the purpose of weight management. This can be a huge adjustment, so it may help to work with a Registered Dietitian to help you get started. 

4. Dealing with society: 

The previous three recommendations are things that you can control in your household. And they are a great place to start. But your daughter will go out in the world and encounter diet culture everywhere. Here are some common places she’ll see it and ways you can respond to protect her from negative consequences:

Social Media

Social media is filled with diet culture. While it’s often not possible to shield our daughters from diet culture on social media, we can minimize its harmful impacts by living a body-positive, anti-diet lifestyle at home. But to take it even further, make sure you talk openly about the issues with social media. 

In my experience, it’s best to try and take a balanced approach rather than criticize such an important aspect of her life. For example, you can say things like “I love that on TikTok you can learn so many dances, and I only wish we could see more body diversity in the dancers.” Then let her respond. She may point out that she follows several dancers who are in larger bodies. Or she may just huff and stomp away. But you can trust that just mentioning body diversity will remind her to actively seek body diversity on social media.

Criticizing social media rarely works well. It is a power move that can have negative consequences. Instead, try to open up conversations and put safety measures in place such as time limits on apps. But the best thing you can do is engage in ongoing discussions about the pros and cons of social media. 

Movies/TV/Radio

Movies, TV shows, and even random comments on the radio are often fatphobic. Once you start looking for weight stigma and diet culture, you’ll start to see it everywhere. My suggestion is to point out fatphobic comments as they happen. 

For example, if a TV show has a character that suggests someone “needs to eat fewer brownies” (because they’re fat), then I suggest you immediately say “Oh no, so fatphobic. Knock it off!” to the character on the screen. Your kids may look at you strangely, but that’s better than allowing weight stigma in your home without objection.

If a radio host mentions it’s time to get back to the gym and work off some extra pounds, you can say “that’s not how it works, buddy.” These light but direct comments help your daughter start to see the weight stigma that surrounds us and make sure that you are exposing it when it happens. The best response is when she asks for an explanation from you.

Magazine Covers/Billboards

While few teens get magazines delivered anymore, they will still see fatphobic magazine covers, particularly in the grocery store checkout line. There may also be billboard advertisements and bus stop ads for weight loss, fat-removal surgery, and more. These forms of constant exposure to weight stigma and diet culture are subtle but have a big impact.

I suggest you point them out as fatphobic and wrong. You rarely need to get into long discussions, but be ready to do so if you think your daughter wants to talk some more about a disturbing message or image she’s been exposed to. It’s best to keep the door open on these conversations so she feels safe coming to you with questions.

Remember that the thing you can control here is what you say and how you respond. Your daughter does not have to agree with you or discuss this deeply with you for your words to have an impact. Focus on your presentation more than her response to it.

Dealing with school:

Whether it’s from a teacher, peer, or coach, weight stigma runs rampant in most schools. Your daughter will most likely encounter diet culture at school, and you want to protect her from that. Here are some common places she’ll experience it and ways you can respond to avoid negative consequences.

Health Class

I frequently hear from parents who believe that a health class was a trigger for their daughter’s eating disorder. This is deeply distressing but not surprising given that we live in a society that has mistakenly aligned low weight, food restriction, and over-exercise with health. 

It’s best to assume that any health classes provided at your daughter’s school will include some version of diet culture. The most common things I hear about are education about “good” and “bad” foods, introducing calorie counters, step counters, and other tools, and misinformation about fat being the “cause” of disease. 

I suggest you prepare your daughter for this misinformation in advance and talk about it at home often. Don’t allow health class to go unchallenged, no matter how well-meaning the teacher is. 

Additionally, if you feel up for it, talk to your school administration about the dangers of teaching children to diet, a known cause of weight cycling and a major factor in the development of eating disorders.

Peers

Because our culture is full of dieting and weight stigma, it’s likely that your daughter’s peers will be dieting and fatphobic. This is not about them being individually wrong or bad. Fatphobia and dieting make sense in our culture. Because of this, we never want to blame the individual, and instead recognize the societal forces at play.

I recommend talking to your daughter often about diet culture and weight stigma and helping her problem-solve and brainstorm ways to respond when they show up among peers. Your daughter does not have to be a social justice warrior who confronts diet culture and weight stigma at school. But it will help if she has some responses in her mind at least to keep herself safe and centered when it happens around her.

Conversations with peers about weight stigma and diet culture are nuanced and challenging. Support your daughter in finding her own path rather than telling her what she “should” do. It’s much more effective to guide her in finding her own response.

Coaches/Teachers

We know that coaches and teachers are part of our society and therefore often suffer from weight stigma and diet culture. This is understandable and makes sense. However, when weight stigma and diet culture is actively taught to our daughters, it may be necessary to speak up.

As always, your first line of defense is a good offense. Arm your daughter with the knowledge and strength to recognize diet culture and weight stigma and counteract it, at least in her own mind. Maintaining a body-positive, anti-diet household will go a long way to protecting her from the worst offenders. 

Approach conversations about teachers and coaches with an open mind and heart. You don’t want to condone fatphobic behavior, but be careful not to overreact when your daughter tells you about it. Because overreacting can lead your daughter to get defensive on behalf of a coach or teacher who she may respect and like. Let your daughter lead the conversation and do more listening than talking.

However, if you feel a coach or teacher is teaching dangerous concepts to students, you may want to speak with them directly or talk to the administration. For example, if a coach is doing weigh-ins and openly shaming girls who have gained weight, that’s something that should be addressed. Likewise, if a teacher begins a calorie-restriction project in class, you should speak up.

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Living in a society that is cruel and dominating towards female bodies is hard. And it’s difficult to raise a body-confident girl in this culture. But it is possible. You can raise a daughter who is free from body hate, disordered eating, diet culture and eating disorders if you protect her from weight stigma. Good luck out there!

See Our Parent’s Guide To Diet Culture And Eating Disorders

This week, Gwyneth Paltrow is promoting “Intuitive Fasting,” the first book under her new publishing umbrella. The fact that this happens to be National Eating Disorders Awareness Week is not lost on those of us in the recovery community. To launch a diet book that actively promotes eating disorder behaviors while using a similar name to one of the books often used in recovery (“Intuitive Eating”) feels really wrong, yet sadly not surprising.

There are a lot of problems with the book. But here are five that immediately stuck out for me:

1. Fasting is not intuitive

Sure, most of us “intuitively” fast when we go to sleep and when we’re not hungry. But any other form of fasting is not intuitive. The definition of intuitive is “using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive.” A fast is intentional. It is not instinctive. We all know that fasting, even for religious or other meaningful and necessary reasons, requires massive amounts of self-control. There is nothing instinctive or intuitive about it. When you fast, you deny your intuition, which is always to keep your body alive – i.e. eat!

2. Most definitely a diet

Look, I’ve read a lot of diet books. I was a hard-core consumer of diet books for three decades. I recognize a diet book when I see one, and this is definitely one. No matter how they try to package this, the four-week program is most definitely a diet. I define a diet as something that will make me hungry and encourage me to ignore my hunger cues for a future benefit.

Most of the time the goal of a diet is to lose weight. But we’ve learned it’s not cool to say that, so now diets package themselves as “health promoting.” But face it. This book is sold on the wish of weight loss.

Then there’s the diet behavior. Basically this book provides a method for limiting how much food you eat in a day. Here’s a recap of the four-week diet plan included in this book:

1. 12 hours of uninterrupted fasting every day
2. 14-18 hours of uninterrupted fasting every day
3. 20-22 hours of uninterrupted fasting every day
4. 12 hours of uninterrupted fasting every day

But it doesn’t stop with limiting meals. This diet also says it’s ‘Ketotarian,’ designed to put the body into a state of ketosis to burn fat and not sugar. Um, hello diet culture!

Gwyneth described her first four weeks as “pretty much a bone-broth diet.” The “Keto” diet is not new, and it’s not intuitive. It’s a way to try and hack the body, and (speaking from experience) it’s very, very hard on the body and considered by many Registered Dietitians to be unsustainable and unhealthy unless medically advised for specific reasons and under supervision.

3. Promotes eating disorder behavior

One of the main behaviors of an eating disorder is trying to extend the windows between eating food. This is common in most eating disorders, not just anorexia. Most people who have eating disorders restrict food (e.g. fast) for as many hours as possible, trying to extend the time between meals and limit how much they eat through the day.

The more we restrict, the less our stomach can comfortably hold and the more we obsess about food. Fasting behavior sets us up for a snowball effect of restrictive eating and, for many, binge eating. This can easily turn into disordered eating and, for some, an eating disorder. People who develop eating disorders convince their starving stomachs that fasting is healthy and good. All sorts of mind tricks support us in this belief. The result of fasting restriction may be a loss of all desire to eat, binge eating, and/or purging.

4. This is a money-making enterprise

Everybody is entitled to make a buck where they can, but when the bucks come from promoting eating disorders, I take issue. This book is part of the $72 billion diet industry.

The “Intuitive Fasting” book represents the launch of the Goop Press as part of the brand’s new publishing partnership with Rodale Books, a division of Penguin Random House. In other words, this book is a product. It’s not a health program or meant to help us. It’s meant to make money.

In her blog post to promote the book on Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow also promotes 18 other products for sale. Goop looks like a health platform, but it is an advertising platform designed to generate revenue for the company. The content and products are not altruistic, and they are not concerned for our health. A businesses’ purpose is to make as much profit as possible.

5. Ripping off the Intuitive Eating title is not cool

Intuitive Eating is a book that was first published in 1995 by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. It’s a bestseller that appears on almost every eating disorder professional’s bookshelf. It lays out an evidence-based self-care eating framework and has been cited in over 140 peer-review scientific studies to date. Intuitive eating has been gaining popularity and visibility as the culture slowly begins to re-evaluate our relationship with dieting and food. Many people who are in eating disorder recovery utilize the principles from “Intuitive Eating.”

Naming this book “Intuitive Fasting” is awfully close to “Intuitive Eating” and “Intermittent Fasting.” Yeah, I’m sure it passes copyright laws, but it’s shady.

No need to buy the book “Intuitive Fasting”

Everyone gets to make their own choices in life. If this book appeals to you, that’s completely your decision. But here’s the secret: this book is just a different spin on the same old thing. Every diet book promises health through restriction. Short-term discomfort for long-term gain. That’s the promise. Every time. You don’t need to buy this book to hear another version of it.

Intentional weight loss (diets) result in weight regain (95% of cases), more weight gained (65% of cases), and eating disorders. A person who diets is up to 15x more likely to develop an eating disorder.

This book is unlikely to bring better health, and it’s risky since eating disorders and diet culture are linked. Try Intuitive Eating instead. It may feel like a total stretch, completely out of your comfort zone. But that’s the point! And it’s been shown to actually improve health.

See Our Parent’s Guide To Diet Culture And Eating Disorders

If you’ve heard about the “non-diet” approach to health and wondered what it really means or whether it’s safe for your child, you’re not alone. In a culture obsessed with weight loss and “clean eating,” the idea of rejecting diets can feel confusing or even risky.

But the truth is, the non-diet approach is rooted in science, compassion, and a deep respect for the body. It focuses on health behaviors rather than weight, and it can be especially helpful for children recovering from or vulnerable to eating disorders. In this parent guide, we’ll break down what the non-diet approach really is (and what it isn’t), explain why it matters, and share how parents can support their child’s well-being without relying on harmful diet culture messages.

A non-diet approach to health for your family

Despite what every magazine, influencer, newspaper and even your doctor says, the data we have available is in support of a non-diet approach to health. This is surprising and even shocking to many people, but it’s important that we turn the tide on diet propaganda and look at the facts.

NOTE: every statement in this article is linked to scientific research. Simply click on the link within the paragraph you’re reading to see the source.

Dieting is a national obsession – why?

In November 2020 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced that more Americans are on diets now compared to a decade ago. A 2009 study estimated that 24% of American men and 38% of women were actively attempting to lose weight. Meanwhile, 70% of American women 50 or older report that they are trying to lose weight.

And alongside the increases in diet efforts, the weight loss industry grew. In 1984 the U.S. the weight loss industry generated about $10 billion in revenue. That number jumped to $72 billion in 2019.

While it markets itself as a health initiative, weight loss is a money-making industry that has experienced tremendous and highly profitable growth. And while it’s been very successful as an industry, it’s been a failure in terms of health and weight. There has been no increase in population health and the rise of the diet industry parallels an increase in U.S. body weight of about 10 lbs.

This is good for the diet industry, because it points to the weight gain as the problem it’s here to solve. But the data in support of a non-diet approach to health shows that:

• Dieting leads to weight regain
• Most dieters regain the weight lost plus more
• Dieting is bad for your health
• Dieting leads to eating disorders
• Reported risks of fat itself are surprisingly incorrect

These proven facts are rarely spoken of outside of non-diet circles. Why? Because they don’t support fatphobia, or weight stigma, which is pervasive and was intentionally built by the massive and highly-profitable weight loss industry to sell products.

Dieting leads to weight regain

Since the 1950s, health and mental health professionals have criticized the conventional wisdom that permanent weight loss is possible. Clinical trials on weight loss have high dropout rates. Additionally, they rarely have participants move from one weight category to another. Finally, the overwhelming majority of people who lose even 5–10% of body weight have regained it 1 year later.

It is well established that weight loss can usually be achieved by restricting food intake. But the majority of dieters regain weight over the long-term. But why? Is it because people are bad at dieting? Or do they just slip back into bad habits?

The answer may surprise you. Because it’s actually completely out of the dieter’s control. It’s a biological fact that our bodies want to maintain our weight. When a body loses weight, every system works to get it back to where it was. That’s why no current treatment for weight reliably sustains weight loss.

Within 9 years of weight loss, 95% of women and 93% of men were unable to maintain the reduced body weight. This figure is regardless of the weight loss method, amount of weight lost, or starting BMI. In other words, diets have a 5% success rate. Five percent would be considered a complete failure for any other medical recommendation. No educated medical professional would recommend a treatment with this level of failure. Yet they do recommend intentional weight loss. It boggles the mind!

Dieting leads to additional weight gain

You may be thinking that while regain is possible, at least you tried! But regaining weight lost isn’t the only problem with intentional weight loss. The majority of people who diet end up heavier than they were when they started. Again, this is biologically based. It’s not due to bad diets, bad dieters, or any other modifiable personal behavior.

Studies show that about two-thirds of dieters regain more weight than they lost on their diets. And these studies likely underestimate the reality.

Over time, after controlling for age and body mass index (BMI), mild dieters gained about 6.7 lbs. And severe dieters gained about 10.3 lbs compared to non-dieters. You read that right: dieting causes weight gain.

Intentional weight loss is a predictor of accelerated weight gain. The odds of becoming “overweight” by 25 years were significantly greater in people who dieted compared to those who didn’t. Dieting is linked to increased susceptibility to weight gain, independent of genetic factors.

Dieting is bad for your health

There is no evidence that dieting results in health improvements, regardless of weight change or weight status. But, even worse, dieting has serious side effects. In fact, dieting itself is correlated with many of the problems often attributed to higher body weight.

Dieting is associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease mortality. This is even after adjustment for pre-existing disease, initial BMI, and the exclusion of those in poor health. This means that dieting is associated with earlier death. In other words, dieting in an attempt to extend life expectancy is actually associated with a shorter life expectancy.

The primary issue with dieting is that restricting calories, which is how most people lose weight, increases the body’s cortisol levels. Cortisol is the body’s primary stress hormone. It controls blood sugar levels, regulates sleep, manages our use of fuel, reduces inflammation, and controls blood pressure. Increased cortisol has been shown to lead to:

• High blood pressure
• Type 2 diabetes
• Fatigue
• Impaired brain function
• Increased infections
• Muscle weakness
• Osteoporosis

Every one of those side effects of dieting is associated with being at a higher weight. But the act of trying to lower your weight actually increases your risk for these physical ailments.

Dieting leads to eating disorders

Dieting is the most important predictor of new eating disorders. Teenage girls who dieted were 5-18 times more likely to develop an eating disorder. The rate depended on how severely they dieted. The more intense the diet, the more likely they were to develop an eating disorder.

Adolescents using weight-control behaviors were at increased risk for binge eating. They also had more behaviors such as self-induced vomiting and use of diet pills, laxatives, and diuretics. While not everyone who diets develops an eating disorder, the chances increase dramatically with every weight loss attempt.

Eating disorders are serious mental health conditions that impact people of all ages, genders, races, sexual identity, and socio-economic status. Global eating disorder prevalence more than doubled from 2000 to 2018. It increased from 3.4% to 7.8% of the population. This is particularly alarming considering there are few proven treatments. Eating disorders are considered extremely difficult and are very expensive to treat.

Reported risks of fat itself are surprisingly incorrect

You may have heard that fat is “deadly.” Perhaps you believe that people who fail to lose weight are “killing themselves.” But it’s simply not true. This very useful analysis of weight research provides an excellent review of the truth about fat:

1. Obesity is not an epidemic

An ‘epidemic’ of overweight and obesity implies an exponential pattern of growth typical of epidemics. The available data do not support this claim. Instead, in the US there is a relatively modest rightward skewing of average weight on the distribution curve. The majority of people weigh ∼3–5 kg more than they did a generation ago.

2. Overweight and obesity are not major contributors to mortality

Except at true statistical extremes, high body mass is a very weak predictor of mortality. It may even be protective in older populations. 

3. Higher weight does not cause disease 

Causal links between body fat and disease remain hypothetical. It is more likely that higher body fat is a symptom of underlying metabolic processes. It’s unlikely that fat is a direct cause of disease.

4. Long-term weight loss is neither beneficial nor probable

 There is no evidence that people who are obese and overweight can achieve a lower weight. Nor that doing so will improve their health.

The non-diet approach

The non-diet approach is based on a core belief that diets are more harmful to health than weight. The data clearly support the concept of a non-diet approach. Diets create health complications and solve none. People who follow an non-diet approach are often accused of not caring about their health. But the opposite is true: non-diet is pro-health. And being non-diet does not mean you don’t eat well and pursue other health-promoting behaviors. It’s just that you pursue them without the goal of weight loss or weight control.

There are proven behaviors that support health and longevity, but none of them rely on weight loss as a result. For example, exercise is good for your health. So are adequate sleep and healthy, fulfilling relationships with other people. Being non-diet means you may choose to pursue these activities for your health. But the impact of these behaviors on the scale is irrelevant.

Other factors impact health more than weight

Additionally, the non-diet approach recognizes that there are factors that impact our health more than weight. These factors are out of our control. Genetics is the primary driver of weight. Additional factors include racism, discrimination, sexism, sexual harassment, poverty, food insecurity, and environmental toxins. These factors are directly linked to lower mortality and increased disease. People facing these factors may indeed have higher body weight. But it is not the weight itself that is causing their health problems. Instead, it is societal and environmental issues over which they have no control.

Finally, the non-diet approach recognizes that weight stigma is actually a risk factor all on its own. Weight stigma is the belief that fat is unhealthy and deadly. The health impact of weight stigma is likely the same as those often blamed on weight. Most likely, the problem is not the weight itself, but the way society treats people who are at higher weight. Heavier people are actively discriminated against in almost every professional, medical, and social setting.

In summary, it’s better for your health to weigh more and never diet. Diet culture and eating disorders are strongly linked. There is no benefit to dieting, and it is associated with significant health complications. Living at a higher weight than you want to be can be hard in our society. But that’s a societal problem, not a problem with your body. The data definitely support a non-diet approach to health, and I hope you’ll find out more and make the shift!

See Our Parent’s Guide To Diet Culture And Eating Disorders

Diet culture is everywhere, from school lunch tables to social media feeds, and it sends harmful messages that can shape the way kids think about food, weight, and self-worth. For parents, understanding how diet culture operates is essential to protecting your child’s mental and physical health.

Disordered eating often begins with seemingly innocent habits like skipping meals, cutting out food groups, or praising weight loss. This guide breaks down what every parent needs to know about the toxic influence of diet culture, how it contributes to disordered eating, and what you can do to raise confident, well-nourished kids in a world obsessed with thinness.

What is diet culture?

Diet culture promotes the idea that weight loss is a meaningful, good and healthy pursuit in life. This belief can be deeply dangerous for anyone at risk of an eating disorder. Diet culture promotes disordered eating behaviors. To heal from disordered eating, we must reject diet culture. This is hard because diet culture is absolutely everywhere.

It’s impossible to separate disordered eating behavior from diet culture. Diet culture reinforces our sense of worthlessness. It tells us we can be a better person if we restrict food and follow food rules. Recovering from disordered eating requires waking up to diet culture. We must see it for the evil liar that it is.

Dieting all the time

At any given time, about one-third of Americans are on a diet. [1] Despite its promises, diet culture has absolutely not lowered our body weights. In fact, it likely contributes to weight gain. Diet culture and eating disorders are linked. It is also a serious barrier to eating disorder recovery.

Diet culture begins with recommendations such as “eat less and move more.” But these simplistic directions do not result in weight loss for most people. The promise is that the problem is never the diet, but the person who is failing to follow the rules correctly.

Diet culture absolutely surrounds us. It is impossible to live in our society and not be immersed in diet culture. It is perpetrated on billboards, television, and social media. We are not free of diet culture anywhere. It’s in doctor’s offices, classrooms, places of worship, playing fields, workplaces, and, worst of all, in people’s homes. Surveys of higher-weight adults find that their worst experiences of discrimination come from their own families. [3]

Here are is a definition of diet culture:

1. Diet culture tells us that there is an ideal body type and that everyone can achieve that body type if they try hard enough.

Diet culture blatantly ignores the fact that bodies are naturally diverse. Two people can eat the exact same foods and weigh drastically different amounts.

It is simply unscientific to suggest that all bodies can follow a particular diet and weigh the same amount.

When everyone believes they can and should have the same body size, regardless of their genetic blueprint and starting weight, we create a fertile breeding ground for eating disorders.

2. Diet culture tells us that people who are fat are fat because they don’t control what they eat.

Most people assume that larger bodies are created with a simple problem of eating too much and eating the wrong things.

But in fact the most likely cause of weight gain is repeated dieting.

Since 1959, numerous studies have shown that 95% to 98% of all intentional weight loss efforts result in weight gain, plus extra. This is due to our biology, as just a 3% loss of body weight results in a 17% reduction in the body’s metabolic rate.

Many people who are in larger bodies are actually very accomplished dieters. They have lost significant amounts of weight numerous times in their lifetime. It’s just a side effect that every time they lose weight, they become fatter.

No, they did not fail the diet. Their bodies responded to dieting as expected: by gaining weight.

3. Diet culture tells us that people who are thin are smarter and morally superior to those who are not.

Diet culture relies on the idea that anyone can avoid being fat relatively easily. It says that if they simply apply individual discipline and moral conduct. they will lose weight.

Virtually every diet book, blog, and influencer screams some variation of “I did it, and you can do it too!”

The suggestion is that people who are fat just aren’t trying hard enough. The promise is if they just had the willpower and moral fortitude, they could be thin. This is a very harmful lie.

Morality and inner strength have nothing to do with weight. The belief that they do is a core driver of many eating disorders.

4. Diet culture equates being thin with being healthy.

In diet culture we assume that a person who is thin is healthier than a person who is fat. However, this is not supported by research.

It turns out that the largest indicators of health are health behaviors – and body weight is not a behavior. Healthy people can be fat or thin, and unhealthy people can be fat or thin.

The difference lies largely in what they do, and exercise, healthful eating, avoiding alcohol, and reducing stress are all much stronger predictors of health than weight.

The continued assumption by diet culture that thin = healthy causes incredible damage. People living in larger bodies experience weight stigma that decreases their chances of being healthy. They seek medical advice less frequently, receive biased medical advice for non-weight-based medical conditions, feel ashamed when they exercise, and seek comfort in food more frequently.

It’s very likely that the true risk of having a larger body is weight stigma, not the weight itself.

What diet culture means for disordered eating recovery

Many people who have eating disorders are believers of diet culture.

It’s all too easy to believe diet culture’s lies because they are everywhere. Eating disorders are complex and go beyond food and weight. But they often begin with diet culture lies.

To recover from disordered eating, we must reject diet culture. To free ourselves, we must repeatedly assure ourselves that diet culture is a liar based on completely faulty evidence.

We must remind ourselves that our bodies can pursue health at any size. Slowly, we can establish a truce with our bodies. We may never achieve full love for our bodies, but we can definitely achieve acceptance. This will be much easier for us if our parents and families join us in rejecting diet culture.

See Our Parent’s Guide To Diet Culture And Eating Disorders

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[1] International Food Information Council Foundation, 2018

[2] National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2017

[3] Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong, Michael Hobbes, Huffington Post, Sept 19, 2018

Despite growing awareness about the dangers of diet culture, many schools continue to promote harmful messages about weight, food, and body image. From outdated health curricula to well-meaning but misguided lessons on “healthy eating,” kids are still being taught that thinner is better and that food should be morally labeled as “good” or “bad.”

This can lay the groundwork for disordered eating and body shame, especially in vulnerable children. So why are we still allowing these messages into our classrooms? In this article, we’ll unpack how diet culture sneaks into school systems and why it’s so damaging.

Diet culture at school

Well-meaning teachers can make a positive impact if they stop teaching dieting and weight loss at school. This includes making statements and putting up posters saying things like “eat less & move more,” and “eat healthy foods.” Such statements are problematic from a scientific, nutrition, health, eating disorder, and social justice standpoint.

You may think you’re being helpful, but children as young as 6 years old have reported dieting. And 80% of US girls have been on a diet by age 10. Intentional weight loss of any type is correlated with higher adult weight [1] and life-threatening eating disorders. [2]

We can all agree that the goal of schools is to educate our children. And yet one thing teachers need to stop teaching is dieting and weight loss.

But what about the “obesity epidemic?!”

Most schools that institute nutrition and exercise programs have the goal of reducing “overweight” children. They are doing this based on the “fact” that kids are getting fatter. And the belief is that weight gain will result in significant lifelong health consequences. This concept is supported by popular belief systems. It’s reinforced by media and health and wellness companies. However, it is not supported by scientific research.

1. BMI is a terrible measurement of health

The “obesity epidemic” was founded on BMI standards. These were developed in the 1800s and have been proven to be a terrible measurement of both adult [4] and childhood [5] health. The BMI standards used to define “overweight” and “obese” were adjusted for children in 2000. This changed “overweight” from 95% to 85%. As a result, there was an immediate increase in the number of “overweight” children with no change in the actual weight-to-height ratio. Thus, the “epidemic” is exposed as a simple change in how statistical data is crunched.

BMI is a poor indicator of health. A better way to determine whether we have a true “obesity epidemic” is to look at their average weights. And there have been no significant changes. “This can be taken as evidence that there has been no ‘epidemic’ of weight gain since an epidemic would certainly have affected average weights.” [6]

2. Fat children face no more risk of disease

Even if we were facing an “epidemic” of weight gain, in a review of 17 studies, children who remained fat from childhood to adulthood had no more risk of disease than adults who had never been fat. In fact, women who maintained high weights from childhood to adulthood actually enjoyed lower levels of triglycerides and total cholesterol. [7]

3. It’s not as simple as overeating and under-exercising

There is no evidence to support the assumption that our kids’ weights are directly based on an energy imbalance. That is, we can’t say that kids are eating too much and exercising too little. Kids have shown a decrease in calorie intake [8], and an increase in activity rates [9]. It is incorrect to believe that “overweight” kids are a function of simple calories in and calories out.

4. Weight loss is an unethical prescription

It is unethical to prescribe any form of weight reduction in children. The vast majority of all people who intentionally lose weight regain everything they lost and then some within three years. Weight cycling is worse for health than living in a larger body without weight cycling.

But isn’t it good advice to “eat healthy?”

Many educators may agree that children should not “diet.” Yet they still teach poorly-understood concepts of “healthy” eating. For example, many educators tell children they should limit sugar. However, there is very little evidence that sugar intake is linked to obesity. [5] Even sugary sodas, commonly believed to be nothing but “bad,” have no direct link to weight gain. And in fact, one study even found that teenagers who drank the most soda were thinner than their peers who avoided soda. [11]

Similarly, fast food has not been associated with greater obesity. Some of the heaviest populations in the world have no access to fast food. [12] What children eat certainly plays a role in their health. However, blaming weight on particular foods and food groups is simply not supported by scientific evidence. [13]

Many teachers think that saying something like “eat healthy!” is at best positive and at worst neutral. However, they are incorrect. “Negative messages such as sugar and fat are “bad,” and the use of the term “junk food” contributes to the underlying fear of food, dietary fat, and weight gain, which precedes body image concerns and eating problems.” [14]

Should schools fight obesity?

An alarming number of schools have decided to take on preventing “childhood obesity” as part of their mission. However, the data shows it’s not helpful. The Child Adolescent Trial for Cardiovascular Health (CATCH), sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, is one of the largest school-based prevention programs.

In CATCH, schools modified school food service, increased physical education programs, and introduced health curriculum and family nutritional education. Despite three years of well-intentioned efforts, participating schools did not reduce the rate of “overweight.” Nor did they achieve decreased blood pressure or cholesterol levels. [15]

“There is little evidence so far that school-based programs have had a major or lasting impact on BMI or body adiposity.” [16]

“Many studies over the last few decades show that when adults try to regulate or control what children eat, the children ate more, not less, and are likely to end up with weight, body image, and eating-related problems.” [3]

Controlled experiments have shown that “trying to encourage, pressure, or even reward children to eat certain foods actually turns them off to those foods and makes it less likely that they will eat them. Conversely, if children are deprived of certain foods, they become more interested in those foods and are more likely to overeat them when they get the opportunity.” [18]

School programs put kids at risk

Schools mean well when they put weight loss programs in place. However, school-based programs have no evidence of success. [16]

One study looked at which teachers were most involved and passionate about a school’s childhood obesity prevention programs. Unfortunately, they found that these teachers had a very low level of nutrition knowledge. They also had very high levels of personal body dissatisfaction and eating disorders. [19]

These teachers were passionate about but not qualified to teach nutrition or weight science. Additionally, they were at risk of passing along dangerous beliefs about body weight and disordered eating behaviors.

The majority (85%) of the teachers studied reported that they recommended strict, calorie-reduced diets despite the fact that there is no evidence to support the viability of such efforts. there is also no evidence that dietary restriction positively impacts health. [16, 20]

Prevent weight stigma! (not obesity)

It would be great if teachers could stop teaching dieting. But what about health? Well, the good news is that teaching students Health at Every SizeⓇ (HAESⓇ). This approach focuses on self-acceptance, positive body image, and intuitive eating and movement.

Anti-obesity programs have shown no success in improving health. Yet Health at Every Size has shown “statistically and clinically relevant improvements in physiological measures (e.g., blood pressure, blood lipids), health behaviors (e.g., eating and activity habits, dietary quality), and psychosocial outcomes (such as self-esteem and body image), and that HAES achieves these health outcomes more successfully than weight loss treatment and without the contraindications associated with a weight focus.” [21]

Diet culture and eating disorders are strongly linked. When teachers stop teaching dieting and adopt a HAES perspective they will help kids be healthy.

See Our Parent’s Guide To Diet Culture And Eating Disorders

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References

[1] Pietilainen, Does dieting make you fat? A twin study, International Journal of Obesity, 2012

[2] Striegel-Moore RH, Bulik CM. Risk factors for eating disorders. Am Psychol. 2007

[3] J. Robison, Helping With Harming: Kids, Eating, Weight & Health, Absolute Advantage 7, 2007

[4] Franzosi, M.G. Should we continue to use BMI as a cardiovascular risk factor? Lancet, 2006

[5] Ellis JK, Abrams SA, Wong WW. Monitoring childhood obesity: assessment of the BMI index. Am J Epidemiol, 1999

[6] Obesity and the Facts: An Analysis of Data from The Health Survey of England 2003. Social Issues Research Centre, February 2005.

[7] Serdula, M.K., Ivery, D., Coates, R.J. et al., Do Obese Children Become Obese Adults? A Review of the Literature. Preventive Medicine 1993

[8] Cavadini, C., Siega-Riz, A.M., Popkin, B.M. “US Adolescent’s Food Intake Trends From 1965-1996.” Archives of Disease in Childhood, 2000

[9] NSW Schools Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey (SPANS) 2004

[10] Tracy L. Tylka, et al, The Weight-Inclusive versus Weight-Normative Approach to Health: Evaluating the Evidence for Prioritizing Well-Being over Weight Loss, Journal of Obesity, 2014

[11] Storey ML, Forshee RA, Weaver AR, Sansalone WR, Demographic and Lifestyle factors associated with body mass index among children and adolescents, International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, 2003

[12] Simmons D., McKenzie, A., Eaton, S., et al, Choice and availability of takeaway and restaurant food is not related to the prevalence of adult obesity in rural communities in Australia. International Journal of Obesity 2005

[13] De Onis, M. & Blossner, M. Prevalence and trends of overweight among preschool children in developing countries. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2000

[14] O’Dea J. The New Self-Esteem Approach for the Prevention of Body Image and Eating Problems in Children and Adolescents. Healthy Weight Journal 2002

[15] Luepker RV, Perry CL, McKinlay SM, et al. Outcomes of a field trial to improve children’s dietary patterns and physical activity. The Child and Adolescent Trial
for Cardiovascular Health. CATCH collaborative group. Journal of the American Medical Association, 1996

[16] Ritchie L, Ivey S, Masch M, et al. Pediatric Overweight: A Review of The Literature. California Center of Weight and Health College of Natural Resources, University of California –Berkeley, June 2001

[17] Birch LL. et al. The variability of young children’s energy intake. NEJM 1991; Drucker RR. et al. Can mothers influence their child’s eating behavior? J Developmental Behavior Pediatrics 1999; Fischer JO, Birch LL. Restricting access to foods and children’s eating. Appetite, 1999

[18] Birch, L.L., Johnson, S.L., Fisher, J.O. Children’s Eating: The Development of Food-Acceptance Patterns. Young Children 50, no. 2, 1995

[19] O’Dea, J, Abraham, S. Knowledge, Beliefs, Attitudes and Behaviours related to weight control, eating disorders and body image in Australian trainee home economics and physical education teachers. Journal of Nutrition Education 2001

[20] Tomiyama, A.J., Ahlstrom, B., & Mann, T., Long-term effects of dieting: Is weight loss related to health? Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2013

[21] L. Bacon, L. Aphramor, Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift, Nutrition Journal, 2011

If your child is struggling with an eating disorder, continuing to diet yourself can unintentionally send confusing and harmful messages about food and body image. As a parent, your actions and attitudes deeply influence your child’s recovery journey.

Stopping dieting is a crucial step toward creating a healthy, supportive environment that fosters healing and body acceptance. In this article, we’ll explore why quitting dieting matters, how it impacts your child’s recovery, and practical strategies to shift toward a balanced, nurturing approach to food for the whole family.

A healthy step

Yes, you really do need to stop dieting if your child has an eating disorder. Why? Because diet behaviors are eating disorder behaviors.

Let’s start by defining the word dieting, because it’s gotten a bit confusing. Dieting is the behavior of restricting intake with the goal of controlling weight. You can call it a heathy lifestyle or trying to get “back on track,” but if the basic behavior is limiting food intake with a stated or implied outcome of controlling or reducing reduce weight, then it’s a diet.

And I get it: all of us were raised in a culture that promotes dieting everywhere. We’re told by parents, friends, doctors, educators, and self-help gurus that weight control through dietary restriction is both necessary and healthy.

What they don’t tell us is the very clear evidence that restricting food with the goal of weight control almost always results in weight cycling. This results in weight regain, often plus more. It also negatively impacts cardiometabolic health and increases the risk of eating disorders.

I understand the desire to diet and lose weight. But we really must overcome the endless cycle of dietary restriction that is neither sustainable or healthy.

There is a very good chance that you, like many parents, are engaging in regular cycles of dieting followed by binge eating to various degrees. It is an ingrained part of our culture, and there is nothing to be ashamed of. Nonetheless, when your child has an eating disorder it’s an urgent opportunity to get off the diet cycle and adopt a healthier approach to food.

Ways of eating

I’m going to introduce three ways of eating. The first two probably feel familiar. The third one may feel unreasonable or impossible to you. But if you have a child with an eating disorder, then it’s time to stop dieting. Learning responsive or intuitive eating is the healthiest path forward for you and your child.

Dieting/Restricting

When dieting or restricting, we cut down on food intake. Most of us automatically think in terms of the calorie-counting diets we grew up with. But those were our mothers’ diets. Today there are hundreds of ways to restrict intake without counting a single calorie.

We can cut out food groups like meat, dairy, fat, and carbs. Or we can cut out any “processed” foods. This is really code for foods like chips and ice cream, since every food is technically processed in some way before we eat it. And, of course, we can cut out sugar.

There can be a lot of spoken reasons for cutting these foods out, usually the pursuit of health. But the hidden reason and desperate hope of all diets is to lose weight. The basic formula of a diet is that we rely on external measurements such as time of day, food, calories, weight, etc. to tell us when to eat, how much to eat, and what to eat.

Today, it is a cultural expectation and assumption that we cannot trust our bodies and must dominate and control them with restrictive diets. And there is a $72 billion industry that profits off our addiction to dieting.

Binge eating

The most common outcome of dieting and restricting is binge eating. You have probably noticed that the more you restrict, the more you crave high-fat, high-carb foods. That’s just your body doing what it’s supposed to do. The body seeks homeostasis (a steady state) constantly. This means that when we attempt to change its weight, it will fight back. This is a biological process.

Far from so-called “emotional eating,” binge eating often begins with a biological demand for food. And this biological demand is driven by dietary restriction. This is something that few people talk about.

Usually when someone binge eats we assume they have no self-control. But in fact what has happened is that in some way they have been restricted, and their body drives them to eat the food they need to achieve homeostasis. Often these binges can become larger than simple caloric replacement because we became over-hungry and the body, being smart, wants to eat a bit more to protect us from future scarcity.

For decades diet companies have vilified binge eating as a weak-willed, pathological problem. They have told us the answer is greater willpower and more rigid restriction. Their solution to this problem is yet another restrictive diet that they promise will finally work. Hint: it won’t. The actual cure for binge eating is eating enough food.

Responsive/Intuitive eating

The body is wise, and its purpose is to keep us in a state of homeostasis. To do this, it wants enough food. The body has a natural and intuitive sense of how much food it needs to stay in a steady state. The body’s demand for food has been pathologized, but it is in fact healthy.

It is hard to imagine going from restrictive diets and binge eating to responsive eating. We must begin by removing all imagined control over the scale and trust our bodies to find the weight at which they are healthy (not some arbitrary number determined by insurance companies).

This first step can be the hardest and most important. As long as we hold onto the illusion that we can and should control our weight and pursue a number on the scale, we set ourselves up to return to dieting and binge eating.

Once we release weight as a goal, now we can begin to eat from a place of food freedom. A lot of people misinterpret this as a free-for-all. But that’s not intuitive at all. A person who is in tune with their body tends to eat a varied, healthy diet. They provide good structure and nutrition for their body because that’s what it wants. All foods are allowed, and the body gets enough of what it needs.

This concept is terrifying for many, since we’ve been taught to dominate our bodies and follow rigid diets that have us counting and measuring food. We are taught that the body, unrestricted, will always want too much. But that’s a lie.

Responsive or intuitive eating teaches us to allow all foods and pay attention to our bodies rather than dominate and control them. It’s a major mindset shift that has a proven track record for being healthier for both our bodies and our minds.

How to stop dieting

We are all learning and growing all the time. When a child has an eating disorder, there is room to grow and develop new skills. Not dieting is a new skill that, like all skills, can be learned.

Start by learning more about the non-diet approach and Health at Every Size. Diet culture and eating disorders almost always show up together. When parents stop dieting, their kids may find it easier to recover from an eating disorder. And that alone makes it worth it.

See Our Parent’s Guide To Diet Culture And Eating Disorders