Understanding Diet Culture And Eating Disorders

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 having 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. People are more likely to develop eating disorders if they diet and are virtually guaranteed not to improve their health with 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 less healthy than adults who haven’t. And all diets put everyone in a dangerous eating disorder mindset.

Eating disorders are much more than diets. But diet behavior lines up perfectly with eating disorder behavior: 

• Focus on weight loss/control
• Restrict food to lose weight
• Exercise to lose weight
• Count calories, macros, pounds lost, etc.
• Measure food to limit calories
• Use weight loss to measure “success”

It’s best if nobody in your home is using diet behaviors while your child is in eating disorder treatment because it reinforces eating disorder behavior.

At any given time, about one-third of Americans are on a diet. And yet, as we keep hearing, our weights continue to rise. So what’s up? Well, it turns out that even though diet culture promises to help us lose weight, dieting actually predicts weight gain.

That’s definitely not what it promises, is it? It’s so bad that a massive federally-funded Medicare study failed to find a diet that didn’t cause weight cycling, nor could they identify any health benefits of going on a diet.

Diet culture presents a simplistic view of human biology. Most diets combine some variation of “eat less and move more.” But despite what we’ve been taught, weight is not a simple equation of calories in and calories out. It is not solely based on our behaviors. Weight is actually mostly genetically determined. If weight loss were a simple problem solved with a diet, we would have evidence of that by this point. But we don’t.

The most likely outcome of dieting is weight gain, not loss. Why does this happen? Most likely because biology beats psychology. Our bodies are programmed to respond to intentional weight loss in exactly the same way as they do famine. Our metabolism slows down and we become preoccupied, even obsessed with food. This is why dieting strongly predicts binge eating, weight gain, and eating disorders.

When we lose weight, our bodies fight to 1) regain the weight lost; and 2) gain a little more to protect against the next famine. Diet companies tell us the reason we regain weight is a lack of willpower. But it’s actually that our bodies are far more powerful than our minds when it comes to weight.

But don’t worry! You can still focus on health! The non-diet approach is pro-health – it just doesn’t use weight loss as a goal or measurement of success.

The non-diet approach is not just sitting back and not caring for yourself. It prioritizes health behaviors that are within our control and actually improve health. For example, the largest impact on our health and longevity is the quality of our social connections. Having friends, building supportive communities, and avoiding loneliness are even more important to our health than not smoking or drinking excessively. And it’s vastly more important than weight status. It’s also within our power to change and has zero negative consequences.

A non-diet approach to health improves cardiometabolic health, nutrition, exercise behavior, sleep, and other positive health behaviors.

We hope you and your whole family will adopt a non-diet approach to health because it’s healthier for all of you! But also, we hope you’ll choose it for the sake of your child’s recovery. Continuing to endorse diet culture in your home while your child has an eating disorder will reinforce the eating disorder.

There’s so much we can do to raise healthy kids without dieting! Here are just a few ideas:

• Improve and deepen family relationships and connection
• Seek community and belonging with other people
• Practice stress management and attend to your mental health
• Eat a variety of food regularly to fuel your body
• Move your body unless sick, fatigued, or medically advised not to
• Drink enough fluids to stay hydrated
• Get at least the minimum number of hours of sleep recommended for your age every night

The non-diet lifestyle puts the focus back where it belongs: our health!

We suggest implementing a Policy of Body Respect in all households with an eating disorder.

Body Respect: Bodies come in different shapes and sizes, and all people – of all sizes – are worthy of dignity & respect.

Self Respect: We speak about our own bodies with respect, and we don’t criticize or speak cruelly about our bodies.

Respect For Others: We speak about other bodies with respect, and we don’t criticize or speak cruelly about other bodies.

Family Boundaries: As your parent, I will do my best to protect you from body shaming. I will respectfully speak up when I witness body shaming inside and outside this house.

Get a free copy of these principles out and post them in a prominent place.

Data in support of the non-diet approach to health

Parents, don’t talk about dieting

Please stop dieting if your child has an eating disorder

How to protect your daughter from diet culture

Diet culture myths that create eating disorders

The diet industry and eating disorders

⭐ Get ready for recovery and find out how you can prepare yourself for maximum success.

⭐ Find out the essential steps and family rules you need to have in place for recovery.

⭐ Make your home recovery-ready with six simple steps that anyone can do.