Category: Diet Culture And Eating Disorders

The recent TikTok trend of calling out mothers for being “almond moms” brings up the obvious question: are almond moms related to eating disorders? The answer is nuanced.

The almond mom trend blew up on TikTok in late 2022. It’s primarily driven by teens and young women posting videos that mock their moms for diet behavior like undereating and overexercising. These posts parody the mothers as being stuck in diet culture and eating disorder behavior. The mothers are presented as being rigid and ridiculous in their own weight control behavior. They also blame these mothers for inflicting diet culture on their daughters, even causing disordered eating and eating disorders. 

Almond moms are parodied saying things like:

• “Are you sure you’re still hungry, or are you just bored?”
• “I’m starving … I’ll just eat a few almonds, and that’s plenty.”
• “Sugar is the devil.”
• “A moment on your lips, a lifetime on your hips.”
• “I want you to eat healthy, so no junk food.”
• “No chips for you – have a couple of almonds instead.”

Is an almond mom helpful or harmful?

In the TikTok videos, an almond mom is presented as being silly, harmful, and sometimes traumatic. Almond moms are shown using classic diet behavior that were actively taught to girls and women in the 1990s, like cutting food into tiny bites, ignoring cravings, substituting desired food for less-palatable low-calorie food, ignoring hunger cues, counting calories/points, and believing that being in a small body is essential.

In the parodies these moms are passing these diet culture beliefs onto their kids. They teach their kids diet behaviors and restrict the food available in the home (e.g. no junk food). Almond moms also critique their kids’ hunger and appetite.  

Can almond mom behaviors be linked to kids’ eating disorders?

Diet culture is a known contributor to eating disorders. Therefore, perpetuating and modeling diet culture at home can be linked to eating disorders. We know that how a family talks about eating, exercise and weight impacts how kids feel about them. 

As biopsychosocial disorders, eating disorders are highly responsive to the home culture. So yes, almond moms may be linked to eating disorders, but it’s not a simple cause and effect. Eating disorders affect about 10% of the population. But I estimate that almond parent (diet) behavior is present in at least 80% of American households. 

Not everyone with an “almond mom” will develop an eating disorder. And, of course, people who don’t have an “almond mom” may develop an eating disorder. In other words, having an almond mom may be a risk factor for an eating disorder, but it’s not the sole cause.

Do almond moms have eating disorders?

Many almond moms may be women with disordered eating and/or an unrecognized/undertreated eating disorder. Remember, moms today were raised in a highly body-toxic environment that actively taught girls and women to adopt diet culture. Women are both the primary target of the ~$80 billion diet industry and are mocked and vilified when they follow its rules. Ouch. 

Surveys have identified disordered eating behaviors among at least three out of four American women. In 2013–2016, 49.1% of U.S. adults tried to lose weight in the last 12 months. All weight loss efforts utilize eating disorder behaviors, and intentional weight loss is a significant risk factor for developing an eating disorder. 

Many adult women have active eating disorders that have never been identified or treated because they follow what the diet industry calls a “healthy lifestyle.” It is effortless for eating disorders to fly under the radar in our body-toxic diet culture.

It is impossible to diagnose strangers on the Internet, but I think we can have compassion for women being called almond moms because they may be living with some form of disordered eating, if not full eating disorders.

My opinion on the almond mom trend

I think the almond mom trend exposes a dangerous thing that we know is common in homes. It’s a conversation we must have. However, I don’t think publicly shaming women is a helpful way to resolve the pernicious nature of diet culture.

The truth is that when parents (including dads!) are stuck in disordered eating and diet culture, they can’t help but model that for their kids. Even parents who say they are focused on health, not weight, show their kids that weight is a huge deal by controlling their own body size with disordered eating and exercise patterns.

The fact is that when parents are stuck in diet culture, their kids are at higher risk of eating disorders. So I think we need to have more conversations about how parents’ attitudes towards food and weight issues need to change. 

At the same time, I’ve seen some really upsetting TikTok videos in which “almond moms” are filmed without their knowledge and mocked for their disordered behaviors while eating. I’m absolutely not a fan of public shaming or invasions of privacy, especially when it comes to something as personal and fraught as a woman eating. 

If you’re an almond mom

If you think you might be an almond mom, thank you for being vulnerable to notice that! It’s hard to look at ourselves in a negative light. If you have been accused of being an almond mom, I’m sorry. It’s not nice to be called names. 

Either way, being an almond mom is a call to action. I invite you to explore your beliefs and behaviors about eating, exercise, and weight. Diet culture is virtually invisible when we’re stuck inside its tangled web. I know – I’ve been there! But it’s essential that you do the work to uncover diet culture beliefs and heal from your harmful behaviors, for your kids’ sake and your own.

Here are some steps to get started:

1. Learn about diet culture and a non-diet approach to health
2. Talk to a non-diet dietitian, therapist, or coach for expert feedback and advice
3. Ask yourself how your beliefs about your weight have shaped your health behaviors
4. Consider the impact of your weight-control behaviors on your child(ren)
5. Heal your relationship with eating, exercise, and weight so you can pursue a healthy lifestyle without weight control
6. Talk to your child about what you’re learning and apologize for past behavior if necessary
7. Don’t stop exploring! Diet culture is deeply ingrained. Keep working to counteract weight stigma and weight control beliefs and behaviors.

While I don’t like the method, I think the almond mom trend on TikTok has a lot to teach parents everywhere. Our kids are watching us all the time, and they are affected by our beliefs about weight, eating, and exercise. If you think you might have an eating disorder, please reach out for help and support. You deserve it!

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

So many of our cultural health norms are not actually healthy, which is why I’ve put together a list of the four diet culture myths you should ignore to prevent eating disorders.

Look, it’s not our fault that we’re confused about health. We’re surrounded by powerful industries that create and reinforce health myths. We have the diet industry, the food industry, and the fitness, beauty, and fashion industries. They are all motivated and skilled at making us believe they have the answer to being healthy. But while health does require the basics: food, housing, and food, consumer goods are not the path to health. Health is an inside job.

Raising healthy kids

Jon and Theresa always wanted the very best for their two kids. Theresa is a nurse and Jon runs marathons. Together, they thought they knew what to do to raise healthy kids. But now that their kids are tweens, they see signs of disordered eating.

“My first hint that something was wrong was when whole containers of peanut butter and loaves of bread would disappear,” says Theresa. “We don’t keep candy, cookies, or chips in the house, but when we went to parties I would see my kids hovering over the food table, grabbing every bit of junk food they could get their hands on. It was shocking to see them put away so much food so quickly. I tell them they will get stomachaches, but they don’t stop. It seems like they have a limitless capacity for junk food.”

Jon agreed. “At first I thought that meant we needed even stricter rules, but now I’m not so sure. It seems like maybe we’ve raised them in such a carefully-managed environment that they just go crazy when they’re out in the real world. I just don’t know how we can keep them healthy anymore – my rules don’t seem to be working very well.”

The relationship is what matters

Often parents worry so much about feeding kids a “junk-free” diet. But in doing so they don’t realize that their kids’ relationship with food and their body is what’s most important. And without a healthy relationship with food and their bodies, kids are susceptible to disordered eating and eating disorders.

Theresa and Jon are worried that their older daughter is developing binge eating disorder. “She’s eating a lot more than usual at night and then skipping breakfast and lunch almost every day,” says Jon. “Sometimes we catch her in the pantry at night, and she seems so desperate and unhappy. Last night she was sobbing in my arms about how much weight she is gaining. I told her she’s beautiful, but it didn’t help.”

“I realize that we have created a lot of food rules and restrictions in our house, and even though our goal was health, it’s not working out so well,” says Theresa. “We both grew up with SpaghettiOs, Pop-Tarts, Top Ramen, and frozen pizzas and burritos, and maybe being so strict with food as parents was an overcorrection.”

Theresa and Jon are not alone. We want to do everything we can to raise healthy kids, but sometimes common health advice gets in the way of them having a positive relationship with food and their body. Even though health myths are everywhere, parents can safely ignore most of them, especially if they want to prevent eating disorders. Health doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s not easy parenting in the midst of all these health myths. But we can do it!

Here are the four parenting myths you can ignore to prevent eating disorders:

Myth 1: my kids will never stop eating sugar and junk

There is a powerful myth in our culture that kids, and all people, are insatiably drawn to sugar and “junk” food. And while there is plenty of evidence that food companies strategically create food that appeals to our genetic predisposition to eating lots of life-giving calories, this doesn’t tell the full story.

Yes, our bodies are very attracted to sweet, salty, and fat-filled food. But bodies are not naturally insatiable unless they are experiencing restriction (famine). In fact, it’s becoming increasingly understood that eating an entire sleeve of Oreos is more likely based on the fact that you have negative beliefs about the Oreos and have told yourself not to eat them than the Oreos themselves. You read that right: restriction, not access to delicious food, breeds binge eating.

There are many people who raise kids using Intuitive Eating and/or Ellyn Satter’s Eating Competence method. With these eating styles, people feed themselves healthfully but don’t avoid foods(except for allergies), eat according to appetite, and don’t use weight as a measurement of success. These styles of eating have been associated with the highest levels of health across multiple domains, from cardiovascular to mental health. They are also protective against eating disorders.

Parents should serve kids regular meals featuring a variety of food. Meals should include starches, fats, vegetables/fruits, protein, and dairy (if there’s no lactose intolerance). To avoid binge eating or an unhealthy relationship with food, serve desserts and other tasty, highly palatable foods as part of your regular rotation. 

I know it’s hard to believe, but when you serve all the foods, you’ll raise kids who naturally modulate their food intake and don’t suffer from a scarcity mentality that drives binge eating and/or dieting and restriction. The best thing you can do for your child’s physical and mental health is to raise them to have a healthy relationship with food.

Myth 2: I need to lose weight to be healthy

We live in a culture that is cruel to bodies, so it’s not unusual for parents to be actively working to lose weight with diet and fitness programs. Or on the other hand, parents may feel so discouraged that they don’t feed their bodies well, move them enough, or otherwise treat them with kindness and respect. 

Disliking and tearing apart our bodies and trying to achieve health with weight loss is a cultural obsession that is linked to body dissatisfaction and eating disorders. Surprisingly, intentional weight loss is not associated with increased health and is associated with higher lifetime BMI. 

There are many myths linking weight loss to health, when in fact it is the most common precursor to weight gain and eating disorders.

Ask yourself: 

• Am I actively trying to lose weight?
• Would other people judge my exercise program as intense or extreme?
• Do I think I need to lose weight?
• Am I struggling with binge eating?
• Would other people say that my eating is “pure,” “clean,” or otherwise admirable based on social media standards?
• Am I avoiding events and celebrations because I feel ashamed of my body?
• Before attending events and celebrations, do I try to lose weight so I look better?
• Do I have bad body thoughts almost all day, every day?

One of the most important things we can do to prevent eating disorders is to heal our own relationship with food and our body. Our children listen when we groan and complain about our bellies, thighs, and other body parts. Our children are watching when we limit our dinner to a salad with no dressing. They know when our exercise is more compulsive than pleasurable.

It’s best if we can adopt a non-diet approach to health. This is not “letting ourselves go,” it is respecting our bodies. This includes eating healthfully (see what that means above), and movement, which is great for almost all bodies. But dieting to lose weight or adopting extreme fitness programs can have serious consequences for our own bodies and our kids.

Myth 3: I need to manage my kid’s weight

The essential health behaviors we need to manage for our kids are:

• Meals and snacks: serve a variety of foods regularly, reliably, and in a pleasant environment
• Movement: provide access to free play, P.E., individual/team sports, and/or family physical activities like hiking or dancing together in the living room
• Sleep: depending on their age, our kids need 8-12 hours of sleep. Sleep is essential for both mental and physical health and should be carefully managed.

But should parents “manage” kids’ weight? Should we monitor it and restrict their food and/or increase exercise if their weight increases or has always been higher than we’d like it to be?

The simple answer is clear: no. The idea that parents need to control kids’ weight is one of the most harmful myths contributing to eating disorders.

And I’m not coddling kids by saying this. The most common outcome of parents who restrict kids’ food with the goal of weight loss is actually higher lifetime weight. That’s right: attempts to control weight actually increase weight. Dieting and weight control in childhood and adolescence predict higher BMI in adulthood. This is because of a syndrome called weight-cycling.

Basically, when you intentionally lose weight, your body kicks in a bunch of biological systems to deal with the perceived famine. Your body has many non-conscious methods such as slowing your metabolism and extracting every single calorie from your diet to try and maintain homeostasis. It will do everything it can to get you back to the weight you were before, often with a little extra to keep you safe.

Restrictive diets and intentional weight loss are both strong predictors of an eating disorder.

It makes sense in our society that parents worry about kids’ weight. Nonetheless, parents should not try to manage or reduce kids’ weight. Focus on healthful feeding, enjoyable movement, and sleep, and trust your child’s body to settle into the weight it’s meant to be.

Myth 4: health is something I can see

Multi-billion dollar industries are dedicated to convincing us that health is visible. After all, if we believe that health is something we can see, we are more likely to buy the products that promise to make us look healthier. Gorgeous models are hired and Photoshopped to sell us the idea that beauty and thinness equal health. But it’s simply not true.

The myths saying we can see health by observing someone’s weight contribute to eating disorders. Health is an inside job. Heavier people are just as likely to be healthy as thinner people. People who are not gorgeous can be just as healthy as gorgeous people. So what can parents actually do to improve kids’ health? Raise your kids in a healthy environment by following these guidelines: 

1. Don’t diet and don’t let kids diet (dieting is associated with weight gain and eating disorders)
2. Feed kids healthfully (using Ellyn Satter’s Eating Competence model)
3. Get kids moving for fun and function (with friends and with you)
4. Protect kids’ sleep (meet the minimum age-based requirements)
5. Build healthy emotional connections with your children (enjoy them and make family time meaningful and fun)
6. Help kids learn to self-regulate their emotions (begin by co-regulating with them to build this skill)

These are the basic foundations of health. If you achieve these six things, your child has the structure and support they need to be healthy. And if problems arise, as they probably will, you’ll have the tools to help your child feel better soon.

Moving forward

Theresa and Jon are getting parent coaching to help them build a food- and body-friendly household for their kids. They’re working on being a lot more flexible with how they define health and developing new communication and emotional skills. They can see that certain health myths were increasing their kids’ risk of eating disorders.

Their daughter has responded well to their changes. She is eating more regular meals and experiencing fewer binge-eating episodes. There is less stress around food and she can comfortably eat a few cookies without feeling the urge to binge eat all of them and then restrict afterward to try and make up for it.

Last week they went to an annual family event that is known for its delicious and formerly forbidden foods. This year, Jon and Theresa noticed that their kids ate and enjoyed the food, but they also spent far more time with their cousins. They were not chained to the food table, but rather socialized and enjoyed themselves.

Both kids are more relaxed around food. It took a little bit of time, but now they are showing all the signs of being competent eaters. Eating is a lot more fun and less stressful for everyone. And Jon and Theresa feel more confident and secure that they are raising their kids in a truly healthy environment. Diet culture and eating disorders are linked, so this is an important step forward in raising healthy kids.

For privacy, names and identifying details have been changed in this article.

See Our Parent’s Guide To 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

by Lauren Dorman, RD CDE

Our society is overflowing with food myths that interfere with healthy eating. Half-truths and outright misinformation about nutrition and health are everywhere. Too many of us believe in myths—faulty, inaccurate, and downright untrue things about the food we eat.  

When working with families, I want them to understand that I am not going to “fix” a body or track a scale number as progress. It is studied and proven that this way of thinking will likely lead to disordered eating and poor health outcomes. In fact, restriction and weight-based care is most likely to create a poor relationship with food in which you feel addicted or obsessed to foods and yo-yo dieting. Things go much better when I help children and their families understand what a healthy relationship with food means and that all bodies are good bodies. 

This is a different concept for many as the world we live in focuses more on the “thin ideal” and “less guilt” food choices. Have you taken a look at magazine covers lately?  They are filled with the $70 billion diet culture messaging. 

I teach all the families I work with to know that all of this is harmful and poor advice.  I help them unlearn many false beliefs about nutrition and they begin to approach health as an entirely different, sustainable way of living. 

Diets are dangerous

A 2016 study of 181 mother-daughter pairs found that girls whose mothers were on diets were more likely to start dieting themselves before age 11. And that dieting was associated with overeating, weight gain and chronic health issues.

Studies and research such as these are the reasons most Registered Dietitians educate on a “food neutral” approach. This means that instead of focusing on healthy foods, ask your child “how does the food make you feel physically, mentally, and emotionally?”  

Pressuring your kids to eat their vegetables backfires most of the time, and in many different ways. Parents can have different discussions about the foods which can make mealtimes less stressful and more enjoyable for everyone!

A focus on health-promoting and intuitive eating for kids has shown so many positive benefits, including improved body satisfaction, lower rates of emotional eating, higher self-esteem, weight stabilization, improved cholesterol levels and reduced stress levels.  If we have a neutral approach to food we can find this whole nutrition thing a whole lot simpler! 

As a Registered Dietitian who doesn’t promote or engage in dieting, one of the first things I do with clients is figure out which of these myths they believe. Then I tell them the truth. 

Here are four of the most common food myths that get in the way of healthy eating:

Myth 1: There are good foods and bad foods

That’s simply not true. A few readers may find that shocking, but the reality is this: Food does not have a moral value. Some foods have fewer nutrients and others have more—but all food is just food, neither good nor bad. Unless you are allergic to something, there is no reason not to eat it. If you avoid certain foods and feel you shouldn’t have them, you will typically crave them more. Give yourself permission to eat all food and your craving for ‘forbidden foods’ will diminish. By eating widely and thoughtfully, you will end up eating a balanced variety of foods. 

Myth 2: Healthy people don’t eat carbohydrates

This is dangerous and potentially harmful. In fact, scientific research confirms that all human bodies, in order to function properly, need carbohydrates. I have reviewed many food diaries where people eat only eggs in the morning, a salad at lunch, and broccoli and chicken at dinner. For all of these clients, I recommend adding a source of carbohydrates to each of these meals to meet their energy and health goals. Almost everyone feels better and more satisfied when eating a balanced meal.

Myth 3: Don’t eat after 7pm 

I can assure you that what you eat in the evening will not magically cause harm or weight gain. One client told me that a teacher advised him to adopt this rule a few years ago, and that ever since he feels shame if he eats a late meal. If you are hungry, your body is asking you for food; it does not matter what time it is. Enjoy and nourish yourself.

Myth 4: Skinny people are the healthiest

Health is not determined by weight. Our society’s relentless focus on what the scale says damages countless people and doesn’t make anyone healthier. Too many people disrupt their physical and mental health by allowing a number on the scale to determine their self-worth. So many other actions that determine your health don’t rely on numbers like pounds or body-mass index (BMI). From my point of view, tossing the scale is a good way to improve your physical and mental health. We all accept that people come in different heights and shoe sizes. Why is it so hard to accept that bodies, too, come in different sizes? 

Raising a healthy family

It’s possible to raise healthy kids by ignoring the four food myths that get in the way of eating. First, don’t label foods as good or bad. All foods can fit in a healthy diet. Next, eat carbohydrates. The human body needs and thrives on carbohydrates, and they can be enjoyed at every meal. Also, you can eat after 7 p.m. or any other arbitrary time diet culture has set. Bodies can digest food 24×7. Finally, remember that weight does not determine health. Diet culture and eating disorders are linked. Get rid of the scale and focus on habits that truly promote health and wellness.

Lauren Dorman, RD, CDE specializes in helping families, chronic dieters, and people with diabetes through her virtual private practice. She also provides a workshop “Imperfectly Healthy”.  To learn more, follow her on Instagram @dont_diet_dietitian_ or email dontdietdietitian@gmail.com

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

Eating disorders are complex mental health issues, but it’s impossible to view them without the diet industry. Almost all eating disorders are fueled by a basic distrust of the body and fear of weight gain. This distrust and fear is developed and nurtured by the $72 billion diet industry.

Almost every diet program relies on eating disorder behavior to intentionally change body size and shape. Some rely on direct caloric restriction, but most of today’s diets push indirect restriction via food elimination and/or exercise. There are many choices, and the diets often contradict each other. Low-fat contradicts low-carb, while vegetarian contradicts paleo. But people keep reaching for the next diet that “really works” because they want to feel good about themselves.

The diet industry tells us to “fight” our hunger to “transform” ourselves once and for all into the ideal thin, happy person. Those of us who strive for this ideal often struggle with eating disorders.

The fact is that diet companies and the media promote eating disorder behaviors with diets every single day. Meanwhile, eating disorders are on the rise. It’s important to take a good, hard look at the industry that trains our kids to develop eating disorders.

The diet industry

Our obsession with weight is not an accident. It has been carefully crafted by marketers working for the fast-growing diet industry. The diet industry has very cleverly made us believe that dieting is necessary and effective.

The foundational elements of the diet industry marketing plan are:

• Convince people that weight gain is both unsightly and unhealthy
• Make people believe they are personally responsible for their weight
• Tell people they can control their weight with an easy-to-use program/product
• When weight is regained, tell people it’s their own fault, and sell them another program/product

The Weight Watchers’ business plan states “Our members have historically demonstrated a consistent pattern of repeat enrollment over a number of years. On average … our members have enrolled in four separate program cycles.” This is a good thing from a business perspective. Repeat users are very profitable. Businesses love repeat users!

But repeat dieters are stuck in what’s called “weight cycling,” which is associated with many health complications. Weight cycling is a known result of intentional weight loss. In fact, dieters would be healthier if they stopped all weight loss efforts rather than continuing to weight cycle.

Weight Watchers as a predator

Weight Watchers, and companies like it, convince us that they are helpful friends on our path to health and happiness. They cleverly make us forget that they are profit-driven businesses. Diet businesses have all marketed hard to collectively drive the diet industry. In 1985 it was $10 billion in annual revenue, but today it is at least $72 billion. The diet industry grows like all businesses, by 1) convincing consumers they have a problem; 2) providing the solution to the problem; 3) making sure the solution isn’t permanent so they get repeat customers.

Even if there were a “cure” for weight gain, the diet industry would not sell it. Why? Because then they lose their money-making machine.

Skeptical? Consider this: if dieting were actually an effective treatment, then where is the scientific evidence? The major diet companies, including Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, should be clamoring to provide us with data and statistics. They should be sharing the medically-proven long-term success of their programs.

Imagine if they fought vicious public relations battles to demonstrate their 5- and 10-year success rates. They don’t. In fact, no diet companies provide us with long-term data about their programs. Not a single scientific study has proven that long-term (2+ years) weight loss is 1) possible; 2) safe.

Instead, diet companies provide us with individual results and testimonials. There is not a single peer-reviewed diet study proving the effectiveness of intentional weight loss.

Diets don’t work – and that’s good for business

Most people can lose weight on a diet for 6 months. That’s not a question. The question is whether it’s possible to keep the weight off. It’s not. Ninety-five percent of people who intentionally lose weight have regained all lost weight after 5 years.

When scientists try to prove the efficacy of dieting, they come up empty-handed. The National Institutes of Health was given $15 million to study diets for 15 years. But research was canceled two years ahead of schedule. The official reason for canceling the study was “futility.”

They could not find any evidence of benefit for the diet intervention they were studying. It was impossible for the statisticians to find any way to make the data show that dieting was helpful. The data could not show dieting could help prevent strokes, heart attacks or deaths from cardiovascular disease. So they cancelled it.

The media and the diet industry

The media also presents itself as a benevolent friend of humanity. It promotes its purpose as spreading truth and knowledge to us. It sells us the promise of delivering balanced information and promoting the idea that it is trustworthy. But the media is also an industry driven by profits.

Information media is under threat, as people seek news and information from increasingly niche markets. The newspaper publishing industry has fallen from $33.59 billion in 2011 to $30.47 billion in 2016. It’s expected to continue falling in the coming years. Entire magazines have stopped printing physical copies, and the job loss for trained journalists is staggering.

The media business is driven by advertising sales. The “trustworthy” information that they provide us is delivered only because of advertising. They exist only when their true customers succeed. And their true customers are their advertisers.

There’s no such thing as an anti-diet industry

Let’s think about this for a minute. There is no such thing as an anti-diet industry. Thus there is no revenue to be gained from writing about the fact that diets don’t work. But there is a $72 billion diet industry that is willing to pay for ads to attract diet customers.

In some vertical markets, the diet industry is responsible for keeping entire magazines afloat. It is diet ad dollars that allow women’s magazines to continue publishing weight loss tips, recipes, and closet organizing strategies.

Publishing is in trouble. And the only dollars keeping some publications afloat are from the diet industry. So how interested are they in spreading the word that diets are not effective? Not at all.

The media has consistently amplified the diet industry’s messaging about weight and diets. Here are the myths and facts:

The media sells the message that we’re never good enough. But they say we can achieve goodness if we follow their programs and purchase the products advertised. We cannot ignore the clear relationship between what the media writes about and where they generate their revenue.

The diet industry and eating disorders are best friends

Diet behaviors are eating disorder behaviors. That’s why it’s so important for parents to fight diet culture at home. Diets literally provide a manual for getting started with an eating disorder.

Not all diets turn into full-blown eating disorders, but a teen who diets is up to 18x more likely to develop an eating disorder. Kids are more likely to develop eating disorders from the diet industry than become healthy from a diet.

We want our kids to be healthy, and lots of us were taught that health is based on weight. But our pursuit of diets has not improved our health. Adults who have dieted are not healthier than adults who haven’t. And all diets put us in a dangerous eating disorder mindset.

Parents revolt

As parents, we must recognize that corporate power lies behind weight and diet messages. Our children are listening. And they are developing eating disorders in part because diet behaviors are indistinguishable from eating disorder behaviors. Parents have to reject diet culture. And we have to talk to our kids about the dangerous media messages that carry the diet industry’s messages.

Additionally, we need to look out for diet industry products and eliminate them from our homes. That may mean ending diet food purchases. It may mean quitting your favorite diet tracking app. And it may even mean ending a magazine subscription due to the fact that it’s supported by diet industry money.

Diet culture and eating disorders are best friends, but that doesn’t mean we have to invite them into our homes.

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

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

Many parents believe they can prevent their kids from gaining weight by talking about weight and dieting. But talking about weight and dieting tends to backfire in a big way. In fact, the most common outcomes are weight gain over the lifetime of the child and/or eating disorders. But all is not lost! There’s so much that parents can do to raise healthy kids using a non-diet approach that focuses on health behaviors, not weight and dieting.

The non-diet approach to health is based on research conducted into Health at Every Size® (HAES®). This approach means you take good care of your body by feeding it good food, moving it, and getting enough sleep and other essentials. The difference between HAES® and a weight-focused, diet culture approach to health is that with HAES® there is no focus on weight loss as an outcome of your healthy behaviors. While weight loss diets are strongly associated with weight cycling and eating disorders, both of which cause great harm, a HAES® approach is strongly associated with positive health outcomes.

How to talk about weight and dieting with kids:

1. Do protect your child from negative weight talk

Outside of your home, your child may still be subject to negative weight talk. Help protect them by teaching them about weight stigma. Consider opting out of school weigh-ins and ask pediatricians not to talk about weight in front of your child.

2. Do talk about health behaviors with no weight association

Bodies can be healthy in a wide range of weights. Rather than focusing on weight, focus on behaviors that are healthy. Help your child get enough sleep, exercise, human connection, and a wide variety of foods, eaten regularly throughout the day, with others when possible.

3. Do approach food from a neutral standpoint

Parents who restrict and outlaw certain foods set their kids up for negative food behaviors and beliefs. Instead, pursue an all foods fit approach. Provide a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, grains and proteins. But don’t restrict other foods that are fun and delicious.

4. Do recognize the impact of weight stigma, anti-fat bias, and bullying about weight

If your child is worried about gaining weight, getting fat, or wants to lose weight, that’s pretty normal. Unfortunately, we live in a diet culture that permeates almost every area of your child’s life. When your child complains about their body or says they want to go on a diet, ask them questions and find out what’s going on. Learn more about their social environment and what is contributing to their feelings. Then, validate that their feelings are normal. Living in a body in diet culture is hard. But at the same time, remind them that in your family your focus is on health behaviors, not weight. Support your child in feeling their feelings without supporting them in dieting to lose weight.

How not to talk about weight and dieting with kids:

Parents are very influential when it comes to kids’ health. Keep in mind that trying to talk to your child about losing weight or supporting dieting has serious negative consequences. Instead, follow these guidelines: 

1. Don’t allow your child to diet

It’s tempting in our culture to go on a diet to lose weight. I get it. But at the same time, the science is clear: diets don’t work, they lead to weight cycling and weight gain, and cause eating disorders. As hard as it is, maintain a strict no-dieting policy in your household.

2. Don’t discuss fat and obesity negatively

If you discuss weight, do so from a neutral standpoint. Respect each person’s unique biological, environmental, social, and emotional conditions. Don’t ever make assumptions about a person’s health or behaviors based on their weight.

3. Don’t criticize your child when they gain weight

Weight gain is a natural part of development. There will be periods during which your child’s body changes, sometimes significantly. Hold back from commenting on weight gain. It will not help and may cause harm.

But what about health?

There are serious negative consequences to talking about weight and dieting with kids. However, parents who want healthy kids can still create conditions in which each child will thrive.

Because while parent conversations focused on weight and size are associated with increased risk for higher weight and disordered eating behaviors. But conversations focused on healthful eating without a weight association are protective against disordered eating behaviors.

And every member of the family can benefit from a non-diet approach to health. This is a healthy approach to food and movement with zero focus on the scale.

Lots of parents criticize weight in front of kids

Because of diet culture, most parents engage in regular “fat talk” in front of children. This includes:

• 76% of parents speak negatively of their own weight in front of children
• 51.5% of parents speak negatively about “obesity” in front of children
• 43.6% of parents speak negatively about their child’s weight in front of the child

Source: Associations of parents’ self, child, and other “fat talk” with child eating behaviors and weight, International Journal of Eating Disorders, 2018

This is not surprising, but it is surprisingly harmful. Although criticizing weight is common in our society, it’s recognized as having negative health impacts, including weight gain, disordered eating, negative body image, and mental health disorders, including eating disorders. 

Parents usually mean well when talking to kids about weight and dieting, but even if your intentions are good, that doesn’t mean they don’t have a negative impact. The trouble is not you or your child, it’s just that we live in a body-toxic culture in which body weight has become a stand-in for health despite evidence that weight is not an important indicator of health and that dieting to reduce weight has serious negative health consequences.

Why parents talk about weight and dieting

Weight and dieting talk doesn’t arise from nowhere. It’s everywhere in diet culture. Most media outlets trumpet the perceived dangers of weight. Doctors regularly engage in clunky attempts to discuss weight. And many families engage in generational fat talk and fat shaming. Even when these talks are intended to help, the evidence shows that they cause far more harm than good.

Over 40% of young women and 27% of young men said they received encouragement from their mothers to diet to lose weight. And about 20% of young females and 18% of young males said they’d gotten similar messages from their dads.

But parental pressure to get and stay thin is associated with poorer health in young adulthood. There seems to be a cumulative effect on adult behaviors centered on weight, weight-related behaviors and psychosocial well-being.

Parents who talk about fat negatively increase their child’s risk of mental health conditions. This includes eating disorders.

Diet and weight loss talk seems simple, but it’s not

We think that weight loss is attainable, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. Dieting and weight loss sound like simple topics (just eat less and move more!), but in fact permanent weight loss is nearly impossible based on a number of biological factors. Even though weight seems to be a straight-forward equation of calories in and calories out, the truth is far more nuanced. 

First, human bodies naturally vary in weight. Out of 100 people, exactly one will be at the 50th percentile for weight, one will be at the 1st percentile, and one will be at the 100th percentile, and so on. Your child was born in a body that is biologically programmed to be at a certain percentile, and it’s likely their early growth curve followed that percentile, with dips and peaks to account for growth spurts. Barring extreme measures, it’s extremely unlikely that a person will permanently move to a lower weight category.

Second, dieting for weight loss slows the metabolism, likely permanently. This means that every time a person diets and loses weight, their body becomes more efficient at maintaining its weight on fewer calories. The body does not want to exist at a lower weight, and will fight its way back up to the original weight. Often it will overshoot its previous weight in order to add a few pounds for safety. This is known as weight cycling, the impact of which has severe negative health consequences. 

Talking about dieting and weight loss causes weight gain (I know! It’s wild!)

Many parents believe that they can save their kids from weight gain by teaching dieting and weight control. They think they can improve kids’ health by preventing weight gain. They teach their kids that weight gain is bad and that they should diet and control their weight.

But adolescents whose mothers or fathers talk about weight and dieting have higher BMI than those who don’t. In other words, parents who try to avoid weight gain by talking about weight control increase the chance of weight gain in their kids.

Parents who attempt to control kids’ weight actually create conditions that seem to increase weight.

Girls who are pressured to diet by their parents were 49% more likely to be larger adults than girls who hadn’t gotten parental pressure. Boys who had a similar experience were 13% more likely to be larger. These results take into account genetic and environmental conditions. Therefore, it appears that an anti-weight environment may increase weight.

This is because weight is more than just calories in/calories out. It’s a complex biological, environmental, social, and emotional equation. And parents who tell kids to control their weight or engage in dieting influence their kids’ natural weight trajectory and create the perfect conditions for negative body image and weight cycling.

Talking about dieting and weight increases the chance of eating disorders

Parents who urge their kids to diet boost their kids’ odds of gaining weight. Also, parents who talk about dieting and weight also have kids who have an increased risk of eating disorders.

Disordered eating behaviors are strongly linked to hearing hurtful weight-related comments from family members. Eating disorders, like weight, are complex. They are based on multiple factors including biological, environmental, social, and emotional. Parents are never to blame for eating disorders. But their behavior can make an impact.

Messages about dieting from parents are linked to higher odds for poor self-esteem, body satisfaction and depression in young adulthood.

Parents who pressure their kids to control their weight and fear weight gain are inadvertently promoting eating disorder behaviors. These behaviors, which include food restriction, binge eating, and purging, create significant health conditions.

Parental pressure to diet increases the risk of “extreme weight control behaviors” (i.e. eating disorders) by 29% for girls and 12% for boys. Parental talk about weight and dieting often backfires and worsens health.

Overall, what parents do around weight and food matters more than what they say. Diet culture and eating disorders are strongly correlated with each other. Investigate your own relationship with food and weight. Explore Intuitive Eating and Health at Every Size® to gain more understanding of the concepts covered in this article.

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

An interview with Judith Matz, LCSW

Parents really, really want to raise healthy kids. Unfortunately, we’re told that the biggest obstacle facing our kids’ health is their body weight. But this approach is harming, not helping our kids grow up healthy.

Parents who are worried about their kids’ weight are more likely to have kids who diet, and the No. 1 outcome of dieting is weight cycling, which can lead to higher lifetime weight, greater risk of eating disorders, and/or lower self-esteem.

We spoke with Judith Matz, LCSW, co-author of Diet Survivor’s Handbook and the brand new Body Positivity Card Deck, and author the children’s book Amanda’s Big Dream – a story that helps kids follow their dreams at any size. She provided us with great ideas about how parents can get off the diet cycle and raise healthier kids.

Q: How can parents help kids develop a healthy body image?

We have to keep in mind that the backdrop is diet culture, and we’ve all been immersed in diet culture. One of the most helpful things parents can do is look at their own attitudes toward dieting, food and weight.

There are a lot of messages that promote weight stigma. This is the belief that thinness is what’s valued, and that you can’t be happy, healthy and successful unless you’re a certain body size. Weight stigma presumes everyone can be thinner if they do the right things and leads to shaming people who are at a higher weight.

Parents typically have the best of intentions. They want to protect their kids from weight stigma. But they don’t realize that they are transmitting negative body image and body shame to their children. This shame becomes internalized, leading to lifelong struggles with food and weight.

It’s important to teach kids that bodies naturally come in all shapes and sizes.

The greatest difficulty facing many of my clients is healing the pain that they weren’t “good enough” because of their body size. These feelings often began in childhood with comments from parents (and other important people in their lives) about weight. Parents who see diet culture for what it is (harmful) can help their kids develop a more positive body image. They can teach kids to take care of their bodies at any size. They can let their children know that they are loved for who they are, not what they weigh.

Q: What should parents know about kids’ health and weight?

What’s helpful for parents to understand first is that weight is a characteristic, not a behavior. Genetics plays a big role in a child’s weight, just like it does in their height. On the other hand, parents can model positive behaviors in their own relationship with food and physical activity.

Socializing with friends, a good night’s sleep and honoring hunger and fullness cues are examples of behaviors that are terrific for kids of all sizes. If you have a child who is active and eats a wide variety of food (given what’s accessible to your family), there’s a good chance they’re at the weight they are supposed to be.

At the same time, if you have a child who is binge eating or hiding food, that should be of concern regardless of their weight. If you have a child who is always sedentary, that may be a concern no matter what the size of your child. It’s also important to keep in mind that’s what healthy for thinner kids is healthy for higher weight kids and vice a versa. Sometimes parents give thinner kids a pass when it comes to unhealthy behaviors that would concern them in larger kids. Using weight to determine health has the potential to hurt kids of all sizes.

Q: Should parents restrict their kids’ food?

For most people who restrict, the response is then to eventually overeat the very food they’ve been avoiding. If a food is considered “bad”, a person is likely to eat more than their body needs when they break through the restriction. It’s a natural response to deprivation. While diets almost always work in the short run, the vast majority will gain back the weight, and one to two thirds end up higher than their pre-diet weight. 

Instead, for both parents and kids, it’s more helpful to honor hunger and fullness than to weigh, measure, and restrict food. We want to raise kids who can recognize that when they eat something that satisfies them—as they’re offered a wide variety of foods—they feel good.

Attuned/Intuitive Eating

This way of eating is known as attuned or intuitive eating. Rather than following external rules and plans, both parents and kids learn trust their bodies to guide them about when what and how much to eat. In March 2020 yet another study came out showing that intuitive eating in the teenage years is linked to a lifelong relationship with food that is nourishing, satisfying and peaceful.

Many parents live with internalized weight stigma and may be dieting to lose weight or even avoiding certain food groups in the name of wellness. In this way it’s easy for parent who wouldn’t intentionally restrict their kid’s food to still model what’s valued when it comes to eating and body size. If a parent says they can’t eat that cookie because “sugar is addictive” or “it’s too fattening,” then they are teaching kids that cookies are bad, and that they should worry about their weight.

When a parent says this meal tastes delicious and feels good in my body, that is a completely different message.

It’s important to know that there’s room for all types of foods in our diets. In fact, it’s more important to raise kids who have a healthy relationship with food as opposed to only eating healthy food. I encourage parents who have dieted to think carefully about their relationship with food. They should watch for ways in which their own restriction slips into making their children feel restricted.

Q: What should parents do to raise healthy kids?

A great place for parents to start is to work on their own relationship with food and their own body acceptance. Some people who can’t do this for themselves find they are able to do it through the lens of the values they want to pass to their kids.

For example, what are your family values? How about valuing staying connected with and honoring the body? How about valuing diversity and knowing that all people are equally valuable in all different sizes, shapes, abilities, and colors?

If these are your family values, then it’s easier to see that there’s room for all types of food. It’s easier to trust that your child’s body is growing as it’s meant to. These values help kids stay in tune with their bodies and are protective against shame, disordered eating, and eating disorders.

Q: How can I protect my child from fat shaming?

No matter what parents do at home, it’s tough out there. Kids are still going to get fat-shaming, thin-valuing messages from peers, teachers, commercials, cartoons, and our entire culture. In this environment, parents should know that it’s not unusual for a child to come home and say, “Am I too fat?.”

Don’t jump to reassurance. Regardless of your child’s body right now, you don’t want to suggest that a body is OK only as long as it is “not fat.” Ask them: what did they hear, and where is it coming from?

Find out how they feel about being fat – what does it mean to them?

Gently teach them that just like we don’t choose how tall or short we are, or what color eyes we have, we don’t choose the size of our bodies. Their job is to take good care of their body, and it will settle where it’s meant to be.

A parent can’t protect their child from fat-shaming. But parents who teach children these messages early on raise kids who are more resilient. They are less likely to fall prey to diet culture, disordered eating, and eating disorders.

Q: Shouldn’t I worry about “bad” food?

No matter what happens at home, kids are going to be exposed to all kinds of food in the world. Rather than restrict food or label it as “good” and “bad,” it’s better to teach them how to eat it in a way that serves and nurtures their body.

Food is a basic human need. It feeds us physically and emotionally, and we should never forget that. It’s better not to teach kids that they can’t eat certain foods. This approach tends to set them up for overeating or binging on that food.

We all know the kids who aren’t allowed to eat candy. You recognize restricted kids because they eat a lot of candy when it’s available since they get it so rarely. This overeating then reinforces the idea that candy is a problem. But the reason they consume so much candy at one time is that they know it’s going to be taken away again. If, instead, they know they it’s going to be available again, there’s no incentive to eat it when their body doesn’t want it.

Q: But there are “bad” foods, right?

Not really. We find that when people eat intuitively and are attuned to their hunger and fullness cues, free from diet culture, they tend to eat a well-balanced diet for their bodies. Certainly some foods are more nutritious than other, but I’ve never met anyone who only want sweets when they listen to their body, just like I’ve never met anyone who only wants fruits and vegetables. The attuned body guides us to make the choices that honor our bodies needs, while diet culture prescribes rules that are destined to fail.

When you look at young kids, they’re concrete thinkers. When they hear healthy/unhealthy, good/bad, they become super-focused on eating the right way, and this is where we see eating disorders begin. Let’s help support kids in learning how to eat all types of food. This gives them the skills to eat without shame, hiding, or eating to the point of physical discomfort.

This is where we come back to the message that parents can work on this first with themselves. If your experience is that when you eat cookies you can’t stop, then it’s not easy to trust that your child will be able to stop. On the other hand, if you’re an attuned or intuitive eater, you know that when you want something sweet you can trust your body to guide you.

Binge eating is less likely to occur for a person who trusts their body and food supply. Learning that this is true for yourself can help you trust your kid’s body.

Q: But what if I’m still committed to dieting?

You can still work on passing down positive messages around eating and body size even as you’re struggling with your own. You don’t have to be perfect first.

But if you’re caught in the yoyo diet cycle, make a commitment not to talk about dieting, label foods as good or bad, or talk about your weight or other people’s weight in front of your kids.

When talking to your child, focus on what the body can do, not what it looks like or weighs. Focus on how food feels, not its nutritional content.

For example:

• “It feels so good to be in a swimming pool on a hot day.”
• “Walking to school really wakes us up so we’re ready to learn.”
• “This food is satisfying.”
• “I love that this food crunches!”

Offer your child all types of foods. Given what’s accessible to your family, serve them fruits, vegetables, protein, carbs and fat. 

Remember that all cultures in the world have dessert. It’s natural to want something sweet after a meal. Once you allow sweets regularly, it’s less likely to be a big deal. This is because your children learn that they can have it often, so there’s no incentive to overeat or hide these foods.

Q: What can I do to be a better parent in this area?

First, keep exposing yourself to social media, books, and podcasts that are non-diet, body-positive, and working to end weight stigma. Do everything you can to end body shaming.

Parents are surrounded by fear around weight and health. But most of the fear is based on myths. The healthiest thing for kids is to be feeling good in their bodies and connecting with other people. Those are things that are worth supporting in kids.

Look for a doctor and other healthcare providers who don’t focus on your child’s weight or discuss it in front of them. It’s fine to focus on a varied diet, being physically active, and social activity. All of those things contribute to good health regardless of body size. Focusing on weight can really interfere with positive behaviors.

People talk about young kids getting diabetes, but really what we’re seeing the big increase in is eating disorders and diet culture. I think that’s what we really need to be focusing on.

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Judith Matz is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with over 25 years of experience as a therapist, speaker and author. She received her Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Michigan and completed a post-graduate fellowship and Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago with a focus on eating disorders. Judith specializes in Binge Eating Disorder and other overeating struggles. She uses the Health At Every Size® framework to promote wellness beyond weight and address social justice issues that affect people of all sizes. Judith is the author of three books related to eating and weight issues: The Diet Survivors Handbook, Beyond a Shadow of a Diet, and Amanda’s Big Dream. Her website is https://judithmatz.com

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

On August 13, 2019, WW (formerly known as Weight Watchers), announced its new app Kurbo for children ages 8-17. This is problematic on many levels.

First, let’s take a look at why WW is desperate to offer something for kids. They say it’s to help kids be healthier. But it’s actually to help WW acquire more customers. WW launched a free gamified weight loss app wrapped in “healthy” clothing to snag new customers when they’re young.

Here’s the thing: WW is a corporation. It is driven by profits. Since it is publicly traded, WW needs to show continuous growth – year after year. This is becoming increasingly hard, since more people are catching on to the fact that diets don’t work.

WW needs to stay relevant and growing, and every company knows that the only way to do this is to expand its market and products. There is nothing altruistic about a corporation like WW, no matter how much it tries to act as if it’s in it for our “health.” It’s in it for the money.

Several studies have found that parental weight talk, whether it involves encouraging their children to diet or talking about their own dieting, is linked to higher weight and eating disorders. This, combined with many other factors, caused the American Academy of Pediatrics to advise against talking about and focusing on weight with children and teens.[1]

Here are four reasons you should not sign your kid up for the WW app Kurbo:

1. WW is a weight loss company and Kurbo is a weight loss app

The Kurbo app is provided free by WW, a weight loss company that is pretending it cares about health when really it just wants to increase profits. The company is not concerned about long-term health outcomes of our kids. It’s only concerned about showing that it can remain profitable in a society that is increasingly rejecting diet culture and the very tenets of its business model.

WW is trying to brand Kurbo as a children’s “health” app, but when you go to download the app, it clearly shows that it is dedicated to weight loss.

The quote at the end of the description says everything. Parents confuse how a child looks with how healthy they are. That is the dirty secret of weight loss companies: they tell us that they are getting us healthy, when all they are doing is making us look thinner, which is not the same thing as being healthy.

Remember that this app is targeted to kids starting at age 8! Weight loss is a medical symptom of an eating disorder. And dieting and restricting food for weight loss are behavioral symptoms of an eating disorder. Weight loss has not been shown to increase health, but diet companies keep telling us it does.

2. Apps don’t improve health

There are no studies showing that an app that tracks intake and activity can improve long-term health for kids – or anyone.[2] In fact, several studies have shown that Fitbit, which promised to transform our fitness by tracking every step, does not increase fitness.[3]

Parents should be involved in their kids’ nutrition. What we have learned about nutrition is not incorrect, it’s just that we can’t tie nutrition to thinness.

Saying that parents shouldn’t use WW’s Kurbo app doesn’t doesn’t mean that parents can’t help their children pursue actual health behaviors such as sleep, exercise, and nutrition, but parents need to explicitly separate health behaviors from body weight. The Kurbo app specifically ties health to BMI, which is just downright wrong.

Parents should help kids with nutrition – not give them a weight loss app

Parents should not outsource their kids’ nutrition to a technology app or for-profit weight loss company. Learning to feed our children is a critical skill that needs to be supported and nurtured.

Parents are so afraid of their kids gaining weight that they restrict food and damage kids’ relationship with food and their bodies. This can result in a lifetime of body hate, disordered eating, and eating disorders. Making parents worry about their kids’ weight hasn’t reduced our national weight status. However, rates of eating disorders have more than doubled in recent years. 

Well-meaning parents may turn to an app like WW’s Kurbo because they want to help their kids be healthy. But the thing is that you can’t see health. Health is achieved through behavior, not weight loss.

Also, showing before and after photos of young kids should be banned! What a horrible legacy for the children who are shown in the app as before and after photos. There is no way that kids can give true informed consent about their images being used to market a weight loss product.

3. Weight loss efforts increase shame and risk of eating disorders

Kids who are in larger bodies already know they are different and feel they are less deserving of respect. Asking them to track their food and activity at such a young age is harmful and not supported by any research showing that it is either safe or effective.

And don’t fool yourself: kids know when their parents want them to lose weight. No matter how much parents (and WW) say that Kurbo is about health, kids know that the whole point is to lose weight.

Kids are so smart, and every child who has ever been put on a weight loss program knew exactly what they were expected to do: restrict food and lose weight. Teens and adults repeatedly tell me that they knew exactly what their parents were telling them when they said things like “let’s try to eat healthier,” “I need you to get more exercise,” “are you really still hungry?” and “you need to watch your weight.”

Kids notice when thin siblings get seconds while they are restricted to one serving. They notice that thin siblings get an extra treat in their lunchbox. Not a single child doesn’t know that being thin is vitally important in our society. And no child has any doubt that “getting healthy” is code for “getting thin.” 

Eating disorders often start with a diet

So many people in the eating disorder community began their eating disorder with a diet. Teens who intentionally lose weight have a 25% risk of developing an eating disorder.[4]

Many people who have/had eating disorders experienced parental concern about their weight. Even if parents didn’t explicitly tell them to diet, their kids still knew that restricting food was required to make their parents feel better. Many, many adults have told me that their parents took them to Weight Watchers meetings from an early age, and that Weight Watchers played a role in their eating disorder development.

Every single child knows from a very young age that “fat” is one of the worst things you can be in our culture. That’s why kids report body hate and diet behaviors as young as 5 years old! 

4. Diets don’t work

Let me rephrase that: diets do work, short-term. But the long-term impacts are pretty bad. Almost anyone can lose weight in the short term. That’s not the problem. The problem is that keeping weight off is virtually impossible.

Studies have consistently shown that 90-95% of people who intentionally lose weight gain it back (often plus more) after 2-5 years.

That’s WW’s whole business model. They benefit because their program creates a constant need to sign up for yet another round of weight loss. The intentional weight loss (diet) industry has a 95% failure rate, but the customers blame themselves, not the program. Imagine if a drug came out that had a 95% failure rate. Would we buy it? No! Yet we keep buying into weight loss programs.

The weight loss research

The most rigorous diet studies show that about half of dieters will weigh more 4-5 years post-diet than they did before they dieted. [5] This is not a secret by any means, as evidenced by the following quotes from researchers:

• Ample clinical data confirm that most dieters rapidly regain any achieved weight loss or even more. [6]
• Dieting to control weight is not only ineffective, it may actually promote weight gain. [7]
• It is well established that the more people engage in dieting, the more they gain weight in the long-term. [6]
• Over one-third of lost weight tends to return within the first year, and the majority is gained back within 3 to 5 years. [8, 9]
• In women, prior weight loss was the strongest predictor of subsequent large weight gain. [10]
• The risk of becoming overweight in initially non-overweight participants was proportional to intentional weight loss frequency. [6]
• Researchers are still digging for the answer, but one clue is the finding that people who intentionally lose weight immediately increase the level of cortisol (stress hormone) in their bodies and decrease their metabolisms long-term [11]

The bottom line is that parents should not get the WW app Kurbo for their kids. Diet culture and eating disorders are strongly tied together. The app could be harmful and support the development of eating disorder behaviors. There is no evidence to show that it will improve health, and evidence to demonstrate it may reduce health.

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

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References

All statements can be verified in our scientific research library. Specific references in this article include:

[1] Preventing Obesity and Eating Disorders in Adolescents, Golden et al, Pediatrics, 2016

[2] Lang et al, Effectiveness of a smartphone application for weight loss compared to usual care in overweight primary care patients: a randomized controlled trial, Annals of Internal Medicine, 2014

[3] Effectiveness of activity trackers with and without incentives to increase physical activity (TRIPPA): a randomised controlled trial, Finkelstein et al, The Lancet, 2016

[4] GC Patton et al, Onset of adolescent eating disorders: population based cohort study over 3 years, BMJ, 1999

[5] Mann, Secrets From the Eating Lab: The Science of Weight Loss, the Myth of Willpower, and Why You Should Never Diet Again

[6] Pietilainen, Saarni, et al, Does dieting make you fat? A twin study, International Journal of Obesity, 2011

[7] Field AE, Austin SB, Taylor CB, et al. Relationship between dieting and weight change among preadolescents and adolescents. Pediatrics 2003

[8] Anderson JW, Konz EC, et al, Long-term weight-loss maintenance: a meta-analysis of US studies, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2001

[9] Weiss EC, Galuska DA, et al, Weight regain in U.S. adults who experienced substantial weight loss, 1999-2002. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2007

[10] A Kroke, AD Liese, Recent weight changes and weight cycling as predictors of subsequent two year weight change in a middle-aged cohort , International Journal of Obesity, 2002

[11] Fothergill, et al., Persistent metabolic adaptation 6 years after “The Biggest Loser” competition, Obesity, Aug 2016

Eating disorders and diets are closely linked. In fact, it is safe to say that if you never diet, you are unlikely to ever develop an eating disorder. Dietary restriction is the primary behavioral symptom of most eating disorders, including binge eating disorder, bulimia, and anorexia.

The purpose of all diets is to lose weight. Intentional weight loss is based on creating a deficit of calories in to calories out, either by eating less, exercising more, or both. In other words, a diet includes eating less than your body requires to maintain its current weight.

Dieting is obvious with anorexia. Most people think of anorexia as a “diet gone too far.” But the vast majority of eating disorders cannot be recognized based on body weight.

Weight and eating disorders

In fact, weight is a very poor measurement of eating disorder status. Eating disorders can be active in any body type. The best measurement of an eating disorder is whether the person restricts food regularly, and every diet is based on helping people restrict their food. This means that diets contain the foundational tools for developing an eating disorder.

Anorexia is obviously linked to dietary restriction, but binge eating disorder and bulimia also involve periods of restriction and starvation. The person restricts for a period of time, and then binge eats. In the case of bulimia, the binge is followed by purges to compensate for the binge. In this way, diet behavior actually underlies almost all eating disorders.

Most people should not go on restrictive diets – based on the scientific evaluation: does it work? Is it safe? Does it have side effects? The answer for diets is no, not necessarily, yes.

Secrets From the Eating Lab: The Science of Weight Loss, the Myth of Willpower, and Why You Should Never Diet Again

Eating disorders and diets

In one study, teens who dieted moderately were 5x more likely to develop an eating disorder. And those who practiced extreme restriction were 18x more likely to develop an eating disorder than those who did not diet. [1]

Dieting leads to heightened obsessions about weight and food. Dieting intensifies feelings of guilt and shame around food. This may ultimately contribute to a cycle of restricting, purging, bingeing or excessive exercise. [2]

The connection between eating disorders and diets:

• Dieting is the most common precipitating factor in the development of an eating disorder. [1]
• 35% of “normal dieters” progress to pathological dieting and that 20-25% of those individuals develop eating disorders. [3]
• Girls who diet frequently are 12 times as likely to binge as girls who don’t diet. [4]
• Dieters are 8x more likely to develop bulimia or anorexia. [5]

This information would be scary enough if dieting weren’t rampant in our culture. The diet industry has convinced us that 1) we need to diet, and 2) diets make us healthier. Neither of these facts is true. And yet diet culture is pervasive, seeping into even the earliest years of our children’s lives.

Most mothers focus on “losing the baby weight” even as their children are just weeks out of their bodies. An obsession with thinness begins at home but is continued in the classroom, on athletic fields, in doctors’ offices. It’s also on buses, billboards, social media feeds, magazine covers, television, and every media imaginable.

Our cultural obsession with weight means that:

• 62.3% of teenage girls and 28.8% of teenage boys report trying to lose weight. [4]
• 58.6% of girls and 28.2% of boys are actively dieting. 68.4% of girls and 51% of boys exercise with the goal of losing weight or to avoid gaining weight. [4]
• 35-57% of adolescent girls engage in crash dieting, fasting, self-induced vomiting, diet pills, or laxatives. [4]

Diets lead to a preoccupation with food thoughts, often becoming an obsession with food. [4] This mental impact is the source of eating disorders. With time and repetition, dieting can become an eating disorder. A person increasingly bases their self-worth on their ability to restrict food.

“It is unethical to continue to prescribe weight loss to patients and communities as a pathway to health, knowing the associated outcomes – weight regain and weight cycling – are connected to further stigmatization, poor health, and well-being. The data suggest that a different approach is needed to foster physical health and well-being of our patients and communities.”

Journal of Obesity, 2014

The link between eating disorders and diets is the reason we are anti-diet. We hope that, after reading this, you will stop dieting and discourage your children from dieting. Here are three things you should know about diets:

1. Diets don’t work

No matter what anyone has told you, the data simply cannot support any claims that diets result in successful, lasting weight loss.

• Meta-analysis of hundreds of diet studies has shown that dieters lose an average of 5-15 lbs over the first 4-6 months of a diet. [6]
• Only 15 percent of dieters manage to maintain a weight of at least 22 pounds below their starting point for three or more years. [7]
• Despite the data, consumers never blame the diet for failure, we always blame ourselves. But the problem is that diets fail us. [5]

2. Diets lead to weight gain

Diets actually cause weight gain. This shocking fact is not debatable, and numerous studies back it up:

• Approximately 95-98% of all dieters who lose weight will regain lost pounds and often end up weighing more than they did pre-diet. [5]
• The most rigorous diet studies show that about half of dieters will weigh more 4-5 years post-diet than they did before they dieted. [8]
• A single episode of deliberate weight loss increases the odds of becoming overweight by 2x in men and 3x in women. [9]

3. Diets don’t make us healthy

Most of us are told by everyone that we will be healthier if we diet. However, this is just not proven by the science.

• Numerous studies have measured blood pressure, cholesterol, triglyceride, and blood glucose levels, and they did not find that participants’ measurements improved with weight loss. [8]
• In the single largest diet study so far, The National Institutes of Health was given $15 million to create a diet that would prevent strokes, heart attacks, and death from cardiovascular disease. They reported that the study was “futile.” They could not find any proof that diet improved health outcomes. [10]
• Dieters are more susceptible to infections, bone density decreases, blood pressure increases, and damaged blood vessels. [11]

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Remember: diet culture and eating disorders are linked.

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

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References
[1] Onset of adolescent eating disorders: population based cohort study over 3 years, Patton, et al, BMJ, 1999

[2] EatingDisorder.org

[3] Pathological dieting, precursor to eating disorder, Philadelphia Eating Disorder Examiner, July 18, 2011

[4] Dieting in adolescence, Paediatric Child Health, 2004

[5] The Diet Survivor’s Handbook, Matz, Frankel

[6] Gal and Liu, “Grapes of wrath: the angry effects of self-control”

[7] Ayyat and Anderson, Obesity Reviews, 2000

[8] Secrets from the Eating Lab, Mann

[9] Pietilainen, International Journal of Obesity, 2012

[10] National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases

[11] Why zebras don’t get ulcers, Robert Sapolsky

A non-diet approach to parenting will help your child feel better and be healthier. Non-diet parenting is all about health and wellbeing, it just upends the belief that these things are based on weight loss. Non-diet parenting means parenting without a focus on dieting for weight loss. Beyond that, non-diet parenting is about liberating our kids’ bodies from the harms caused by diet culture.

So much of what we think we know about food, diet, and weight is just plain wrong. It’s not our fault. After all, journalists, healthcare providers, educators, bloggers, and influencers all promote dieting. Of course, they may call it weight management, a healthy lifestyle, or something else.

But it turns out that intentional weight loss, commonly called dieting, is not nearly as healthy as we’ve been told it is. In fact, it can be very harmful, particularly for kids. And when it comes to parenting, we want to be weight-neutral and take a non-diet approach. 

There’s a lot of pressure on parents to watch their kids’ weight. Some parents believe they must help kids be “healthy” with intentional weight loss. However, there is actually no evidence that intentional weight loss is healthy. Furthermore, there is substantial evidence that intentional weight loss is unhealthy. In fact, it leads to higher weights and increased rates of eating disorders.

Not sure about this? Keep reading for the data below, and/or check out my scientific library for extensive support for a non-diet approach to health.

Principles of the non-diet approach to parenting

A non-diet approach to parenting makes sure you understand the harms caused by diet culture and helps you counteract them and raise kids who are happy, healthy, and free from disordered eating and negative body image.

We live in a body-negative culture that tells us our bodies are not acceptable unless they are thin. But this is cruel, unscientific, and unhelpful. Our body-negative culture damages our kids’ health. There are no known positive outcomes. On the other hand, believing that our bodies are inherently worthy of dignity and respect has very positive health outcomes. Here are the core principles of a non-diet approach to parenting: 

1. Body diversity is natural: Not everyone is thin, just like not everyone is tall. We’re all born with a blueprint, and we’re not all supposed to be the same.
2. Weight loss diets are harmful: There is no scientific data supporting the long-term benefits of dieting to lose weight. However, there is evidence that weight loss diets increase cortisol and decrease metabolic rate, likely forever. Additionally, 95% of diets result in weight regain, and 65% result in additional weight gain. In fact, the most common result of dieting is weight gain after 2 years. 
3. Bodies are wise: Without restriction our bodies intuitively seek a natural weight, food intake, and exercise pattern that keeps us in balance.
4. All bodies are good bodies: Judging bodies as good and bad reflects the worst of our culture (sexism, racism, classism, ableism, etc.), but all bodies are equally worthy of dignity and respect. Nobody’s body is more worthy than another person’s body.

Not sure about this? Keep reading for the data below, and/or check out my scientific library for extensive support for a non-diet approach to health.

Benefits of non-diet parent approach

I know we’ve all been told that keeping our kids at a low weight is the key to health and wellbeing. However, a non-diet approach in which we approach health without focusing on the number on the scale is scientifically proven to improve the following health outcomes:

• Physiological measures (e.g., blood pressure, blood lipids, cortisol)
• Health behaviors (e.g., eating and activity habits, dietary quality)
• Psychosocial outcomes (e.g., social connections, self-worth, body image)

Meanwhile, there are no known benefits and numerous harms associated with intentional weight loss or dieting. It’s surprising, but a weight-based approach to health is scientifically proven to decrease all the things that get better with non-diet parenting. 

Dieting increases blood pressure and cortisol. It has negative impacts on eating and activity habits and dietary quality. Surprisingly, dieting is strongly associated with weight gain. Finally, dieting negatively affects body image, self-worth, social connections, and significantly increases the rates of disordered eating and eating disorders. Dieting is not healthy!

Not sure about this? Keep reading for the data below, and/or check out my scientific library for extensive support for a non-diet approach to health.

Is a non-diet approach healthy?

Perhaps you’re wondering … but if I don’t teach my child to control their weight doesn’t that mean they won’t be healthy?

No.

Quite the opposite.

Science has shown us that people who feel good about their bodies regardless of weight are healthier because they pursue more health behaviors like exercising, eating well, and getting enough rest. They have a lower risk of disease because they don’t live in constant shame and contempt for themselves. They have healthier relationships with themselves and others. They are less likely to develop eating disorders, which affect 10% of the population and are the second-most deadly mental illness.

Diet culture is unhealthy. A non-diet approach to health is healthy.

The science to support non-diet, weight-neutral parenting

Read on for the most important scientific articles supporting non-diet, weight-neutral parenting. Let’s look at dieting, fat, “obesity” and weight epidemics that aren’t actually epidemic at all. It takes a lot of guts to go against the current cultural norms. But rest assured that science firmly supports a non-diet, weight-neutral approach to parenting.

The non-diet approach to health is grounded in research on Health at Every Size® (HAES®). This approach emphasizes the importance of nourishing your body with healthy food, engaging in regular physical activity, and prioritizing sufficient sleep and other essential self-care practices. Unlike the weight-focused, diet culture approach to health, HAES® does not place an emphasis on weight loss as the ultimate goal of adopting healthy behaviors. This distinction is crucial because weight loss diets are linked to negative outcomes such as weight cycling and eating disorders, which can be harmful to individuals. On the other hand, adopting a HAES® approach is associated with positive health outcomes.

1. Non-diet approach has better health outcomes than intentional weight loss

Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift, Nutrition Journal, 10:9, 2011.

Highlights from the Article:

• Randomized controlled clinical trials indicate that a non-diet Health at Every SizeⓇ (HAESⓇ) approach is associated with statistically and clinically relevant improvements in:
  • Physiological measures (e.g., blood pressure, blood lipids)
  • Health behaviors (e.g., eating and activity habits, dietary quality)
  • Psychosocial outcomes (such as self-esteem and body image),
• HAES achieves these health outcomes more successfully than weight loss treatment and without the contraindications associated with a weight focus.
• While intentional weight loss efforts induce short term weight loss, the majority of individuals are unable to maintain weight loss over the long term and do not achieve the putative benefits of improved morbidity and mortality.
• Weight focus is ineffective at producing thinner, healthier bodies, and may also have unintended consequences, including:
  • Food and body preoccupation
  • Repeated cycles of weight loss and regain
  • Distraction from other personal health goals and wider health determinants
  • Reduced self-esteem
  • Eating disorders

2. Dieting leads to eating disorders and weight gain

Obesity, disordered eating, and eating disorders in a longitudinal study of adolescents: how do dieters fare 5 years later? Journal of the American Dietetic Association, April 2006, Pages 559-68.

Highlights from the Article:

• Dieting and unhealthful weight-control behaviors predict outcomes related to obesity and eating disorders 5 years later.
• A shift away from dieting and drastic weight-control measures toward the long-term implementation of healthful eating and physical activity behaviors is needed to prevent obesity and eating disorders in adolescents.
• Adolescents using weight-control behaviors increased their body mass index compared to adolescents not using any weight-control behaviors and were at approximately three times greater risk for being overweight.
• Adolescents using weight-control behaviors were at increased risk for binge eating with loss of control and for extreme weight-control behaviors such as self-induced vomiting and use of diet pills, laxatives, and diuretics 5 years later, compared with adolescents not using any weight-control behaviors.

3. No evidence that diets lead to health benefits

Medicare’s Search for Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not the Answer, American Psychologist, Vol 62(3), Apr 2007, Pages 220-233.

Highlights from the Article:

• There is little support for the notion that diets lead to lasting weight loss or health benefits. 
• The authors review studies of the long-term outcomes of calorie-restricting diets to assess whether dieting is an effective treatment for obesity.
• These studies show that one-third to two-thirds of dieters regain more weight than they lost on their diets, and these studies likely underestimate the extent to which dieting is counterproductive because of several methodological problems, all of which bias the studies toward showing successful weight loss maintenance.
• In addition, the studies do not provide consistent evidence that dieting results in significant health improvements, regardless of weight change.

4. “Obesity” isn’t doesn’t cause disease, and weight loss doesn’t work

The epidemiology of overweight and obesity: public health crisis or moral panic? International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 35, Issue 1, 1 February 2006, Pages 55–60

Highlights from the Article:

• Public health agencies across the world are searching for policies or incentives to mitigate the alleged ‘disease’ of obesity.
• In our view, the available scientific data neither support alarmist claims about obesity nor justify diverting scarce resources away from far more pressing public health issues. 
• Given the limited scientific evidence, the authors suggest that the current rhetoric about an obesity-driven health crisis is being driven more by cultural and political factors than by any threat increasing body weight may pose to public health.

The authors debunk four false claims:

False claim #1: obesity is 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, what we have seen, in the US, is a relatively modest rightward skewing of average weight on the distribution curve, with people of lower weights gaining little or no weight, and the majority of people weighing ∼3–5 kg more than they did a generation ago.

False claim #2: overweight and obesity are major contributors to mortality.

This claim, central to arguments that higher than average body mass amount to a major public health problem, is at best weakly supported by the epidemiological literature. Except at true statistical extremes, high body mass is a very weak predictor of mortality, and may even be protective in older populations. 

False claim #3: higher weight is pathological and a primary direct cause of disease.

With the exception of osteoarthritis, where increased body mass contributes to wear on joints, and a few cancers where estrogen originating in adipose tissue may contribute, causal links between body fat and disease remain hypothetical. It is quite possible, and even likely, that higher than average body fat is merely an expression of underlying metabolic processes that themselves may be the sources of the pathologies in question. 

False claim #4: significant long-term weight loss is both medically beneficial and a practical goal.

This claim is almost completely unsupported by the epidemiological literature. The central premise of the current war on fat—that turning obese and overweight people into so-called ‘normal weight’ individuals will improve their health—remains an untested hypothesis.

The science firmly supports a non-diet, weight-neutral approach to parenting

There are many noisy voices out there telling parents they need to worry about kids’ weight. But the evidence shows that most of our fears abut weight are because of weight stigma. And diet culture and eating disorders are strongly correlated with each other. Fear of fat is not scientific, it’s simply a bias we’ve developed in our culture. The evidence shows that parenting from a non-diet and weight-neutral perspective is safe and healthy.

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

Tom Brady, gifted quarterback for the New England Patriots and winner of seven Super Bowls, is a famous athlete. Unfortunately, like many famous people, he is choosing to spread unfounded and dangerous diet claims that can harm our children.

Brady released a book called “The TB12 Method: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance” that is filled with pseudoscience and claims that are not validated science. Tom Brady’s book is dangerous because it puts health in rigid terms. What he does with his body is completely up to him. But publishing this book is irresponsible.

His claims about his diet may not look like disordered eating at first glance since they do not directly promote weight loss or caloric restriction. However, they are definitely part of the wellness movement in which people promote restrictive and obsessive diets that are neither scientifically valid or emotionally and socially healthy.

Brady’s food recommendations may appear to be ridiculous but harmless. However, the food obsession and foodphobia underlying his recommendations are part of a disordered eating culture. This rigid approach to health puts children at increased risk for eating disorders.

The TB12 Method is a recipe for eating disorders

Tom Brady’s TB12 Method book is dangerous because it’s filled with foodphobia. This is the fear and demonization of certain types of food. In his case, he promotes a diet of “alkanizing” and “anti-inflammatory” foods. He says this lowers his body’s pH level. He says that lowering his pH level increases his energy levels and prevents colds, flu, muscle fatigue, joint pain, bone spurs, poor concentration, mood swings, and bone fractures.

That sounds great! But he is completely wrong. It is scientifically impossible to change the body’s pH level, which is balanced by the lungs and kidneys. And it is virtually impossible to change your pH level with food.

Brady promotes alkaline foods as a path to being a stronger, healthier person (who can become an amazing athlete and win Super Bowls), but what he’s really exposing is a deep and unfounded obsession with and fear of food. The vilification of non-alkaline foods and the halo he puts on alkaline foods follows in the footsteps of so many other famous but non-scientific athletes, actors, and celebrities who believe that their natural genetic predisposition and talent are something that nutrition alone can create.

Yes, Brady is an amazing athlete. He was genetically gifted at birth and has worked hard to develop his skills on the football field. Congratulations, Tom Brady. Now, please stop promoting dangerous and disordered eating advice.

What Tom Brady does not eat

Eating disorders typically involve the following key behaviors:

• Avoiding foods based on the fear that they are fattening, unhealthy, dangerous, and otherwise “bad.”
• Maintaining a very limited diet of foods considered to be “good,” “healthy,” and “safe.”
• Being obsessed with food, as evidenced by constantly talking about food, what will be eaten, what will not be eaten, etc.
• Believing that food is directly linked to body appearance and performance and status as a human being.
• Believing that body appearance and performance is directly linked to status as a human being.

Brady avoids a lot of foods. Here is a partial list of what he does not eat:

• Red meat
• Dairy
• Corn
• Fungus
• Nightshade vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, etc.)
• Soy
• White potatoes
• White sugar
• White flour
• MSG
• Iodized salt
• Caffeine
• Gluten-containing bread and pasta
• Breakfast cereal
• Foods that contain GMOs
• High fructose corn syrup
• Trans fats
• Artificial sweeteners
• Fruit juice
• Grain-based foods
• Jams and jellies
• Most cooking oils
• Condiments like ketchup and soy sauce

Here is a partial list of what Brady does eat:

• Fish
• Vegetables
• Fruit
• Protein bars (which he sells/profits from)
• Protein shakes (which he sells/profits from)
• Soup broth

Brady can eat whatever he wants. Personal diet plans are personal, and he can do whatever he wants with his plate. But Tom Brady’s book promoting his personal diet as a prescription for achieving “a lifetime of sustained peak performance” is dangerous. The diet program he prescribes is incredibly restrictive, and cannot be considered healthy or reasonable for the vast majority of people.

Boys and men get eating disorders

Most people believe that eating disorders afflict primarily young, white, wealthy women who follow calorically-restrictive diets and become very, very thin. This stigma is not accurate, and it can make it challenging for women who do not fit that profile to get treatment for their eating disorders.

This eating disorder stigma also completely ignores the symptoms of eating disorders in boys and men. Because eating disorder behaviors reflect societal pressures to behave and look a certain way, and because we live in a society in which the expectations we have for women are different from those for men, eating disorders look very different when expressed in males.

For example, most males who have eating disorders are seeking a lean, muscular physique. They will restrict their diet with the goal of gaining muscle and reducing fat and will exercise in pursuit of increasing muscle appearance in certain areas of the body. Male eating disorders often involve compulsive exercise and dietary supplements, especially protein supplements.

With this in mind, Tom Brady’s book is a dangerous guidebook for male eating disorders in the same way that all diet books guide people into eating disorder behaviors (AKA dieting). Brady’s book joins a long line of pseudoscience (e.g. ketogenic, intermittent fasting, zero grain, Whole 30, etc.) that encourages the disordered idea that our eating directly results in a particular body type and performance. All of these programs have built a plethora of money-making businesses based on the food programs they prescribe.

No need to biohack

A deeply troubling trend in our society is the pervasive idea that we should eat and behave in certain ways to make us better than we were naturally.

It has been soundly proven that there is no need to try and “hack” our bodies and, in fact, it is impossible to alter core functions such as body detoxification and alkalinity. The term “biohack” came out of Silicon Valley based on the concept that, just like software, the body can be programmed to look and behave a certain way with diet adjustments. But the body is not a software program, and it simply refuses to be hacked.

It is true that eating a diet that has a variety of fruits, vegetables, and grains, is good for the body. But what biohackers, gurus and eating disorders do is take the concept to the extreme. Just because eating fruits, vegetables, and grains is good for us that doesn’t mean we should NEVER EAT ANYTHING ELSE. That is eating disorder thinking, and while it is wildly popular and heavily promoted by companies that make money off our beliefs (e.g. Brady’s line of protein supplements), it is not healthy.

If you have a son …

If you have a son, please watch carefully for diet changes that reflect popular culture such as Brady’s TB12 method. Avoid supplements, including protein shakes and protein bars.

Even if your son’s coaches and friends are pushing protein on him, remember that protein supplementation is unnecessary pseudoscience. If you need justification: the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, released in January 2016, cautioned that people, especially teenage boys and adult men are getting too much protein.

Nightshade vegetables are not unhealthy, iodized salt is fine, and your child can eat sugar, dairy, grains, hamburgers, pizza, cookies, cheese, and other foods they enjoy without committing a health crime.

Eating disorders look very different in our sons and are typically best recognized by paying attention to our boys’ feelings about food and exercise more than how their bodies change in relation to their eating disorder. If your son cuts out entire food groups, uses supplements to “hack” his body, or follows any other current food trends, pay attention.

If you believe your son is obsessed with food and body issues, please don’t hesitate to seek help. Diet culture and eating disorders both impact boys and men. It’s true that most parents don’t think about their sons getting eating disorders, but unfortunately, we must do so given that we live in a disordered eating culture.

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

Diet culture is something we want to teach kids about since it’s a major cause of negative health outcomes and eating disorders. The truth is that we live in a diet culture that promotes and admires dieting and food restriction. Yet this culture makes us sick. And worse, it makes our kids sick. 

There are two main facts that drive me to ask parents to teach kids about diet culture: 

1. Diet culture is associated with worse health. Intentional weight loss achieved by dieting results in weight regain 95% of the time and additional weight gain 65% of the time. This is called weight cycling, which increases risk of disease substantially.
2. Diet culture is a major cause of eating disorders. Teens who diet are up to 18x more likely to develop an eating disorder. Dieting is the most important predictor of an eating disorder. 

Eating disorders continue to rise, and they are showing up in younger kids than ever. Learning about diet culture is essential to protecting your children from the dangerous effects of diet culture.

How to teach kids about diet culture

1. Teach them to spot diet culture by looking for its most common red flags:

• A weight loss goal
• Food rules like “eat this, not that”
• Cutting out entire food groups or specific types of food
• Calorie/macro/fat counts
• Measuring food
• Rigid exercise programs with a “no excuses” mentality
• Simple diet programs that are “easy and effortless”

2. Teach them to eat enough food on a regular schedule, ideally with other people. Most bodies need to be fed every 2-5 hours throughout the day. Skipping meals is a recipe for restriction and binge eating, and it should not become a habit. 

3. Teach them to be critical consumers of health and diet advice. Most people who give health and diet advice are not aware of the dangers of weight cycling and eating disorders. They are typically repeating the same advice we’ve been hearing from women’s magazines for decades. Teach your children to spot diet culture when consuming media on television, social media, at school, doctors offices, sports teams, and within their own family.

4. Take a stand and do not allow kids to diet in the home. Because we live in diet culture and dieting is everywhere, it’s very likely your child will want to try a new diet. Listen carefully and ask a lot of questions. Support your child in healthy behaviors but do not support them in pursuing weight loss, which leads to weight cycling and eating disorders. Be patient, kind, and firm. 

What to teach kids instead of diet culture

Instead of teaching kids to follow diet culture, teach them to follow a non-diet approach to health. This takes the positive elements of our health and fitness culture but eliminates the weight loss goals, since they are proven to be dangerous. A non-diet approach to health includes: 

• Get enough sleep every night and following a sleep schedule
• Eat enough food regularly throughout the day and not skipping meals
• Share family meals and enjoying food-based rituals that bring people together 
• Move their body regularly in ways that feel challenging and positive
• Get outdoors and spending time in nature
• Socialize and spending time with friends and family 
• Get mental healthcare to address body image, anxiety, depression, and other conditions that can increase the likelihood and risks of dieting

The non-diet lifestyle provides all the benefits of a healthy lifestyle without the toxic results that come from diet culture. Without a focus on weight loss, a non-diet lifestyle is ultimately healthier for your child’s body and mind. 

The non-diet approach to health, which is based on research on Health at Every Size® (HAES®), centers around taking care of your body through nourishing it with healthy food, engaging in regular physical activity, and prioritizing essential self-care practices like sufficient sleep. Unlike the weight-focused, diet culture approach to health, HAES® does not prioritize weight loss as the main objective of adopting healthy behaviors. This distinction is significant because weight loss diets have been found to have negative consequences such as weight cycling and eating disorders, which can be harmful to individuals. On the other hand, embracing a HAES® approach is associated with positive health outcomes.

What is diet culture?

“Diet culture is a system that demonizes and hates fat,” says Dana Suchow, an award-winning speaker, educator, and coach who recovered from an eating disorder. “It tells us that even though 95% of diets fail, we should still maintain an endless pursuit of weight loss. Diet culture tells us that we’ll only be healthy if we’re thin, even though we know that thin doesn’t equal health.”

The power of diet culture overrides logic and scientific intelligence. Meanwhile, the diet industry generates over $72.6 billion each year. Their tactics revolve around creating a sense of insecurity, as an insecure individual becomes more susceptible to exploitation. These companies invest billions of dollars in advertising to fabricate problems, solely to market their products as solutions.  

The result is extremely high rates of dieting, despite zero evidence that diets create lasting results, and substantial evidence that they cause harm. According to Boston Medical Center, approximately 45 million Americans diet each year.

History of diet culture

Weight loss diets go back at least to Greek times, but diet culture, in which massive corporations profit from our cultural obsession with weight loss, is a relatively new phenomenon. In 1980 the industry was worth about $10 billion, in 1991 it was worth about $50 billion, and today it’s worth more than $70 billion, with massive ongoing growth projected based on new medical devices and pharmaceuticals. 

Diet culture prioritizes thinness and weight loss above all else, dismissing the importance of healthy behaviors that don’t lead to weight loss. With this approach, dieting does not improve health. The three most common outcomes of dieting are:

1. Weight regain (95-98%)
2. Additional weight gain (65%)
3. Disordered eating and eating disorders

Diet culture diminishes the significance of health by focusing solely on weight loss rather than actual health. Our mental, emotional, and physical health can all improve without changing the number on the scale. 

Furthermore, diet culture perpetuates the demonization and discrimination against fat individuals, marginalizing them within society. Despite the fact that 95% of diets ultimately fail, we continue to pursue weight loss relentlessly due to the belief perpetuated by diet culture that thinness is the same thing as health. Diet culture comes from and feeds weight stigma, also known as anti-fat bias or fatphobia.

Despite the power of diet culture, the science is conclusive: weight loss does not guarantee good health and actually harms health. Diet culture falsely promotes the notion that weight loss in any form is synonymous with improved health.

Effects of diet culture

Diet culture is directly linked to:

• Binge eating
• Weight gain
• Eating disorders
• Anxiety and depression
• Body dysmorphia
• Bullying
• Alcohol and substance abuse
• Suicide

“If we didn’t have diet culture, I know that I wouldn’t have developed my own eating disorder,” says Dana. “That’s why I work to help parents, educators, and caregivers learn about diet culture so that we can reduce its terrible impact on kids, teens, and adults.”

Diet culture facts

“Diet culture is hurting you and your children,” says Dana. “It’s having a direct impact on how our kids feel about themselves, and it is hurting their ability to live a fully-present life. Instead, they spend their time and energy protecting themselves against the fear of being judged by diet culture.”

It is becoming normal for kids to diet and to worry constantly about their appearance. Children as young as 5 years old worry about their weight and already show signs of anti-fat bias. 

Diet culture teaches kids eating disorder behaviors like restricting and over-exercising. Because diet behaviors are normalized, it can be difficult to spot an eating disorder. Dieting is so common that it’s become difficult for researchers to say how many people actually have eating disorders. The lines between dieting, eating disorders, and disordered eating have become blurred. 

Recent studies have put the prevalence of disordered eating behaviors among women and girls at 65%. Additionally, 53% of 13-year-old girls express dissatisfaction with their bodies, a percentage that rises to 78% by the age of 17. Disturbingly, 42% of girls in first to third grade express a desire to be thinner, while a staggering 81% of ten-year-olds report fear of gaining weight.

Diet culture affects kids

“Over and over again, diet culture tells children, teens, and adults that their exterior appearance is more important than anything else,” says Dana. “We are a society that is so focused on the exterior that we have forgotten our interiors. And the problem is, that when we are focused on our exteriors and not our interiors, we’re not present for our life. When we are thinking about our external and not our internal, we are holding ourselves back.”

Living in a society that is cruel and dominating towards bodies is hard. And it’s difficult to raise a body-confident child in this culture. But it is possible. You can raise a child who is free from body hate, disordered eating, and eating disorders if you protect them from the worst impacts of diet culture.

“All bodies deserve to be seen,” says Dana. “All bodies deserve representation. And your kids’ bodies deserve to exist in the world exactly as they are, without dieting, restricting, and over-exercising. Without appetite-suppressing lollipops, laxative teas and juice cleanses. Your kids deserve to live a life free of diet culture.”
There’s hope. We just have to teach kids about diet culture and keep it out of our homes. You have the power to fight diet culture and eating disorders. We have the power to create change. You have the power to help your children.

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Dana presented on this topic in a TED-style talk – you can watch it here:

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