Diet Culture or Wellness Industry? How to Spot the Difference.

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The idea of living a healthy and balanced lifestyle is on just about every magazine, commercial, and instagram ad.

By no means is this bad, and if anything, it's amazing that there's so much emphasis on "wellness." I mean, my business name speaks for itself ;)

But, I was recently in the store and saw 3 different front covers of magazines talking all about cleanses, detoxes, and fasting. This, my friends, is anything but health and wellness. THIS is diet culture weaselling its way into healthy, sustainable living.

I'm going to guess that your eating habits, and the way you think about food, is rooted more in diet culture than you think.

So, what is "diet culture"? According to Christy Harrison, Diet culture is a system of beliefs that:

Worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue, which means you can spend your whole life thinking you’re irreparably broken just because you don’t look like the impossibly thin “ideal.”
Promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher status, which means you feel compelled to spend a massive amount of time, energy, and money trying to shrink your body, even though the research is very clear that almost no one can sustain intentional weight loss for more than a few years.
Demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others, which means you’re forced to be hyper-vigilant about your eating, ashamed of making certain food choices, and distracted from your pleasure, your purpose, and your power.
Oppresses people who don't match up with its supposed picture of “health,” which disproportionately harms women, femmes, trans folks, people in larger bodies, people of color, and people with disabilities, damaging both their mental and physical health.

Diet culture isn't as simple as being on a 30 day diet, it's much more complexed than that. It involves restriction, obsession, "food rules," constantly researching the next fad diet, feeling superior and worthy when you lose weight, and the opposite when you gain weight.

"Wellness," and living your healthiest life doesn't have to involve a 21 day detox or the Keto diet, I promise. So what does “Wellness” really mean? It's a mind-body connection, it's sustainable, and it emphasizes self-care practices that honours your body AND your mind.

For example, feeling guilty about eating a piece of pizza is rooted in diet culture messaging that food has morality. It wants you to believe that there are "good" and "bad foods." Labeling foods can have a detrimental affect on your relationship with food and your body. This leads to restricting foods, cutting out food groups, and over-analyzing what you're putting in your body.
It’s been reasearched that the number one cause of binging is restriction. Restriction can happen (but not the only reason) when you feel guilty about eating certain foods. So, you decide to cut them out, only to compulsively over eat them, and continue to repeat this cycle.

If you feel compelled to start a diet on Monday, every January 1st, or a month before "bikini season" year after year, week after week, maybe it's time to fix your relationship with food and your body.

Curious if your relationship with food has become unhealthy and obsessive?

Maybe you’ve heard the term, “Orthorexia.” This term was coined in 1998, it means obsession with proper healthful eating. Here’s a snippet from National Eating Disorder Association, the warning signs include:

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Compulsive checking of ingredient lists and nutritional labels
An increase in concern about the health of ingredients
Cutting out an increasing number of food groups (all sugar, all carbs, all dairy, all meat, all animal products)
An inability to eat anything but a narrow group of foods that are deemed ‘healthy’ or ‘pure’
Unusual interest in the health of what others are eating
Spending hours per day thinking about what food might be served at upcoming events
Showing high levels of distress when ‘safe’ or ‘healthy’ foods aren’t available
Obsessive following of food and ‘healthy lifestyle’ blogs on Twitter and Instagram
Body image concerns may or may not be present

So, how do we live our healthiest lives without the obsession and restriction?

To me, this involves not only physical, but also mental, emotional, and spiritual health = WELLNESS.

Honouring your intuition, likes, dislikes, and making decisions for YOU and YOUR body, from a place of love and trust.

For some, this could be saying ‘yes’ to a night out on the town involving drinks, fried food, and dancing until the early hours of the morning, and, NOT stressing about the calories, or how they’re going to “make up for it” the next day with a strenuous workout. It’s really just about being present, mindful, and enjoying the people around you, and the food in front of you.

For others, this could mean saying ‘no’ to happy hour drinks, choosing to cook a delicious and satisfying meal at home, going to bed by 10pm, so that they have the energy to enjoy a hike with a friend the next day.

Here’s the thing about both of these scenarios, neither is right or wrong. Only YOU know what is best for you and your body. Not a diet, not a cleanse, not a fast, and definitely not an instagram influencer.

Wellness isn’t a formula or prescription, and nor should it be. We are all unique individuals, with different experiences, life stressors, and genetic make ups. So when your body is screaming at you that it needs a day off from the gym, but you override your intuition with what you think you should do, you’re no longer honouring your body. Other days, that means going to the gym, because in that moment, you’re making the best decision for your future self, these are called self-respecting choices. This becomes easier when you make more time for journaling, meditation, daily check-ins, and body scans.