Within this definition, you may notice that diet culture intersects with many other aspects of our lives. People who are already marginalized and oppressed will be even more impacted by the detrimental effects of diet culture, but it spares no one. Sonya Renee Taylor, in her seminal book The Body is Not an Apology, notes that diet culture hierarchy places white, straight, cis, thin, able-bodied males at the very top, so that anyone who is not one or more of those things, will be increasingly impacted by the detrimental effects of diet culture.
In fact, even young children are harmed by these messages. Our broader culture, local community and family of origin all contribute to our beliefs and behaviors. Early influence from parents/caregivers around food, appetite and body size inform the beliefs held by Parts of us. The messages around food and bodies vary from culture to culture and family to family, but diet culture affects us all.
Let us now consider what messages about diet culture we received in our early years. In a culture so entrenched, it may be difficult to separate what ideas are our own and those driven by diet culture. Disordered eating is so common that calling to mind a loved one, friend or coworker who has a peaceful relationship with their body, with food and with eating can be a real challenge.
Did your caregivers comment on your weight, your appetite, or the amount of food you consume? Did you get teased for your size? Did you witness a parent or loved one make negative comments about their own body, food intake, or see them involved in the cycle of dieting? Were you exposed to adults who did not put any focus on weight and instead acknowledged the inherent worthiness of their bodies as instruments, rather than ornaments? Were you recognized for your appearance, either positively or negatively?
Going Inside with Internal Family Systems
If it feels tolerable to do so, take a few moments to allow any feelings about this to arise. Notice if there’s chatter in your mind, and be attentive to what it is saying. There may be anger, sadness, regret. There may be Parts that feel grateful that you’ve lost weight, that feel more confident when you’re dieting, or that fear what would happen if you disengage with the pursuit of weight loss. Grief that you don’t have the body you long for. Likely, there are beliefs within you about body size being linked to health.
Try to allow these to be there without judging them as right or wrong. As we begin to allow our feelings to surface, we will notice that we may have opposing ideas within our thoughts. For example, you may want desperately to lose weight, and hope or believe that, once you achieve a lower weight you will feel happy and good; that your self-confidence will emerge. Yet, you may also become aware of the belief that you are good enough just as you are right now; a part that knows or fears that losing weight will not bring you happiness, and that dieting is not sustainable.
In IFS, we call these opposing beliefs and desires polarizations and they are important because they indicate the presence of different Parts in our internal system. Many people feel anxious, uncomfortable and stressed by polarized Parts. It can be described as a war within our mind. By getting to know these Parts over time, we can help them understand each other which tends to reduce the friction within. Our Parts can carry burdens and diet culture can certainly create these burdens.
American culture is steeped in conflicting messages around food, bodies, beauty and appetite and it makes sense that we struggle in this area. The intersectionality of culture, gender, race, religion, and disability influence every aspect of diet culture. What do you notice about beauty ideals in American culture? One need only watch TV, read magazines or scroll through social media to determine that White, thin, cisgender and able-bodied women are most prominently featured.
Our own implicit biases will impact our relationship to our body and our appetite, as well as the judgments we might make about others. Sabrina Strings, PhD, writes about our fat-phobic culture and the psychological effects of telling people that their bodies are wrong. She recognizes that it is impossible to completely extract ourselves from the culture into which we are born and raised, and from the impact of fat-phobic and white supremacist diet-culture. The burdens created by these harmful messages are carried by parts of us.
We might have proactive parts who make lists of what and what to eat, who track caloric intake and who tell us we “earned” something yummy because we restricted ourselves all week or did a hard workout earlier in the day. Maybe they try to keep us accountable because they fear that if they didn’t, we’d never stop eating. Parts that revel in the sense of purpose that dieting provides, that believe we will be “fixed” once we attain a thinner body.
Sometimes reactive parts enter the scene and tell us “Screw it! This won’t work, just eat the whole thing.” Some parts may feel connected to peers and family by centering weight-loss, and fear losing that connection if they disengage from diet culture. In some families, dieting together is a way of bonding. The never-ending pursuit of weight-loss or changing our bodies is so commonplace in American culture that to leave it behind can feel terrifying. But who benefits from our never-ending desire to change our bodies? If you can start to identify these parts of yourself and understand how they are helping you to fit in
Are My Restricting/Bingeing/Purging/Overexercising Parts Really Trying to Help Me?