Anti-Diet Culture is touted as the solution to Diet Culture, but is it helping or hurting us? Are websites like this one that provide recipes and meal plans for keto and other diets part of the problem? IS dieting inherently bad for us? Let’s discuss.
I don’t usually do these kind of opinion posts, but I want to “weigh” in (sorry) and also get your opinion on the debate about anti-diet culture that always peaks around this time of year.
After being called out on Instagram by someone for promoting “diet culture” when I posted about my 5 Day Soup Diet this morning, I asked myself honestly if there is anything unhealthy (mentally, emotionally, physically) about promoting or using a plan like Squeaky Clean Keto, Whole30, the Egg Fast (or any diet plan) to lose weight after indulging.
According to the woman who commented on my IG this morning saying she was “not ok with this post,” I was “promoting an ideal” to lose weight “via glorified restriction.” Also that I was not “empowering women to accept themselves” and that I need to “do better for our kids who internalize these messages of diet culture.”
That’s a lot of accountability to assign to someone who is simply sharing a free meal plan for people (and not just women by the way) who want to lose a few pounds.
She obviously feels strongly about it, as do many others. But does anti-diet culture really solve the problem of diet culture?
Before I could answer that – I did a little research into what diet culture and anti diet culture even mean. There is a lot of info out there, and honestly it seems to be subjective depending on who is explaining it, but here it is in simple terms.
What are diet culture and anti-diet culture?
Diet culture is a term that refers mostly to beliefs that slim bodies are more acceptable and attractive and healthy than fat bodies, and that those social norms, perpetuated by the media, are what motivate people to punish themselves via guilt, denial, dieting, and/or over-exercising to achieve the “ideal” body and gain acceptance.
Anti-Diet Culture promotes not conforming to the belief of an ideal body size, and in defiance of that belief to not “diet” or restrict calories, food groups, or portion sizes in any way – but rather to intuitively let your body tell you what it needs to be it’s healthiest self.
Naturally, this raises some questions.
- Is going on a “diet” really self-punishment for the yummy things you ate that led to some unwanted weight gain – and are we even allowed to call it “unwanted” weight?
- Does dieting mean that you are buying into the idea that women have to look a certain way or be a certain weight to be attractive or worthwhile?
- Is going on a temporary diet to reduce your weight (for whatever your personal reasons are) an inherently bad thing?
In my opinion the answer to all of these is no.
I strongly believe that actively managing your body weight isn’t wrong, and that it is all about checks and balances in a similar way to managing your money. When you go on a spending spree it’s fun while it lasts, and then reality hits that you are broke (or at a balance below your comfort level) and you have to tighten up a bit until your bank account recovers.
You don’t decide that being broke or in debt is your right, and continue to spend however you want to because of some imagined “poor” culture.
We don’t vilify having money, and normalize being poor to make ourselves feel better about overspending and not adjusting to whatever our personal financial situation is.
That would be unreasonable and even delusional. The facts are, if we don’t live within our personal means eventually we’ll end up bankrupt, or at least in a situation that causes a lot of anxiety and unhappiness.
In that scenario, if you want to course-correct you have two choices – earn more money to support your spending habits (I realize this isn’t as simple as it sounds for a lot of reasons when it comes to actual money, but bear with me for the purpose of this analogy), or adjust your spending to meet what your current income is.
I propose that dieting is no different. Whether you make a big purchase (a few weeks of overindulgence) and need to tighten up a bit (a short plan to lose those pounds), or you’ve really been off the rails for awhile (hello pandemic weight that is still hanging around 🙋🏼♀️) and need to make some longer term eating adjustments – the checks and balances principle applies.
Maybe, instead of cutting spending, you increase your “income” by exercising and burning more calories so that you can afford to consume more, while still maintaining a positive balance.
Conversely, if you don’t check yourself at all, and simply justify it as abandoning diet culture, empowering women in larger bodies, intuitive eating, food freedom, or whatever is trending at the moment – then you may feel good about that for awhile, but eventually if you aren’t applying some checks and balances to your own eating, you will find yourself in a place you aren’t happy with physically.
And your satisfaction over championing those ideals will be small consolation when you are personally facing the challenges that come with weight gain and other potential health consequences of eating whatever you want for an extended period of time.
Our bodies are like a bank account – and the balance is different for everyone. As someone who has always struggled with my weight, I am a low earner – I can’t afford to “shop” like my account is fat – because inevitably I will be.
I have learned this the hard way, and am back to tightening the calorie/carb belt yet again in an effort to get back to a healthier weight that’s more comfortable for me.
Other people are “making it rain,” and seem to have unlimited spending potential – they can eat whatever they want and maintain a healthy weight. It’s maddening for those of us in a different “class”, but undeniably true.
We can rail about how unfair it is, blame fit people for “perpetuating the problem,” chalk it up to media for stigmatizing being fat – but none of that is going to change the fact that if your goal is to be fit and healthy, then you need to observe the checks and balances and manage your own personal account – whatever its limitations.
Which means if you choose to indulge and it results in some weight gain, if you aren’t happy with that and want to lose the weight, you’ll have to put yourself in a deficit until you do.
It’s not punishment, it’s balance.
I feel that I can speak to this with some credibility because I gave it a go during the pandemic – I “listened to my body” and “honored my cravings” as was recommended by so many influencers on social media who have abandoned “diet culture” in favor of intuitive eating.
It was easier than staying keto and saying no to foods I enjoyed – and instead of feeling guilty about it I felt righteous. I bought into the idea that if I just stopped the cycle of dieting and then indulging and the guilt that came with it, that my body would eventually even out and naturally regulate itself to a healthy weight that was effortless to maintain.
But that’s not what happened.
I slowly but steadily gained weight. I wasn’t binging, but I wasn’t tracking, and I wasn’t limiting – I ate what my body told me it wanted – sometimes salad, sometimes pasta, sometimes fruit, sometimes pizza.
I didn’t like that I was gaining, but I was assured by all these ant-diet culture people online that you just have to hang in there and it will eventually work.
Fast forward to about a year later and lo and behold, anti dieting never led to some metabolic miracle where I didn’t have to put conscious effort into maintaining a healthy weight – instead I was saddled with even more weight than I started with.
And I wasn’t willing to wait another year and possibly another 30-50 pounds gained to see if it would finally start working.
It wasn’t really a surprise in hindsight – from the moment I hit puberty I had to work hard to keep weight off. It’s my reality – no matter what the internet or popular opinion says.
But I believed it because I wanted to believe it.
So called intuitive eating let me off the hook, and I could finally just eat what I wanted to eat and everything would be ok. I could achieve a healthy weight without even trying. Because that’s the promise. That your body will default to its healthiest self on its own.
But it’s a beautiful lie for most of us.
And based on how much my website traffic has shot up in the last few days, I’m likely not the only one who fell for it and is returning to keto or whatever other plan we’ve used in the past to manage our weight when we knew and accepted that it was a fact of life.
So what’s the takeaway?
Saying no to yourself when your body is telling you it “needs” that cookie (and then next thing you know it was actually 5 or 10 cookies) is sometimes a good thing. It’s called restraint and self discipline.
Anti-diet culture tells us that food “guilt” is bad and unhealthy, but the fact is, how you feel about what you eat is irrelevant to the chemistry of weight gain. Feeling guilty about eating 10 cookies versus not feeling guilty about it does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
On Guilt
The word guilt has a negative connotation, and yes, unhealthy guilt can be debilitating if it denotes failure or self-condemnation in the extreme. But some synonyms for guilt are also “responsibility” and “answerability” and that is an appropriate application here.
If that “answerability” or awareness of the cause and effect of over-indulging a bit motivates you to go for a walk or take the stairs to burn those extra calories, then how that NOT a good thing?
Maybe, rejecting that “guilt” because it’s seen as punishing yourself – and believing your body will somehow be sad about it and react negatively, is really just a rationalization for not holding yourself accountable.
I said what I said.
I realize that the notable exception to this would be someone who has struggled with eating disorders who could be at risk when engaging on a limiting eating plan. The very real issues that they are dealing with are not at all what I’m talking about here.
So is it wrong for me to be posting diet plans on my website and social media which could trigger someone vulnerable to unhealthy habits?
I thought a lot about that, and in the end I believe the answer is no. I’m not responsible for someone’s actions regarding eating habits any more than a blogger who posts photos of a delicious cocktail is responsible if it triggers a recovering alcoholic to have a drink.
But maybe I’m rationalizing because I make my living providing keto recipes and meal plans to the public. Can I really be objective on this?
MARION ROBINSON says
I get a bit sick of others telling me what to do all the time. I was the one that chose to follow Mellissa’s advice, it was never pushed onto me. I’m a grown Women with a mind of my own. I have type 2 Diabetes, & the low carb way of eating is wonderful for my health. I never take any drugs whatsoever.I control my blood sugar by eating this way.I’m almost 80 years old, live life to the full,& I want to stay this way for a lot longer. I have a gorgeous Husband of 27 years, who’s 14 years younger than me & our Doctor told us, ” you’re the only folks registered on my books, that don’t need any prescriptions ) We live on the beautiful West coast of Scotland, grow our own organic veg, go out for walks on the stunning Mountains, & laugh a lot….SO THANK YOU Mellissa for taking the time to write the two wonderful books I’ve got & love. Do I feel deprived eating & living this way, not one bit.
just remember this. those of us who follow your plan are the ones who benefit,& if it makes others annoyed, tell them to go somewhere else, leave us alone to stay HEALTHY, after all, WE would go somewhere else ourselves
if it wasn’t right for us ! Have a wonderful healthy 2023 & please write another book soon . I’m sure your gang
would be so happy about that news , I know I would be x
Audra says
So agree on the book! As well as the rest of it!
Mellissa Sevigny says
What an amazing example you guys are, and I am very jealous of your walks in the Scottish countryside! Thanks for your continued support of my site and books, and for taking the time to leave such a lovely comment.
Shona says
This is such a complex subject. I really appreciate you trying to unravel it based on a respect for one of your reader’s comments. From looking at the original comments that triggered this discussion, I feel a lot was read into your original soup post. The commenter seemed to equate suggesting you could lose up to 10lbs with you suggesting people aren’t good enough. I didn’t read it this way and I personally don’t know many people that aren’t trying to dial it back a bit after the holidays. For some people, any suggestion of restriction or weight loss “goals” will always be triggering. And, as you say, others will see it as a tool for weight management. I truly don’t see these two points of view as finding much common ground as they come from such different core beliefs. I feel like you either believe it’s ok to weight loss/weight goals or you do not.
Mellissa Sevigny says
This is so true Shona and I’m not sure they can ever be reconciled, but it is good to know that reasonable people still exist among us!
Martha F. says
Well said! I work in an ER nights every other week and see far too many examples of what anti-dieting has done for far too many patients. Be clear, it is not always weight gain! There are many patients who are thin, but medically malnourished, who are just as inclined to be chronically ill as the obese populations. It’s an ugly circle.
I have also struggled with my weight most of my life, and yes, my self-image. But in no way is anti-diet the answer for me. Yes, I tried. All it did was raise my blood pressure and cholesterol, and forced me to get an even large size for my “fat-day jeans”!
While I don’t follow Keto specifically, I do tend toward lower carbs, preferring whole, unprocessed foods with as little added sugar or things I can’t pronounce as possible. This is what makes me feel best outside and in.
Thank you for what you’re doing and so graciously sharing!
Mellissa Sevigny says
Thanks for sharing those insights based on being on the front lines of it – you have a difficult profession and we appreciate you!
S says
I don’t think of keto as a real diet because I am still eating all of my favorite foods. For me, it’s just a way of like that I don’t mind and mostly enjoy. I don’t cheat very often but my weight is now low enough that I can once in a while as long as I keep it within reason.
Mellissa Sevigny says
That’s the ultimate goal – once you get to where you are within a healthy weight you’re happy with, then gaining 3-5 pounds on vacation or for whatever reason is manageable to lose and doesn’t require a major overhaul. I’m looking forward to working my way back to that place also – thanks for sharing!
An Bese says
I use your recipes and other keto or low carb recipes because I have diabetes and try to control it mainly with diet and lifestyle. I do not use a scale and am not obsessed about body structure/image but do realize that extra body weight can aggrievate and promote health problems like diabetes, heart disease, and many others. These problems, along with obesity in general, are becoming epidemic in the United States and many other countries. We need to all be looking at healthier lifestyles and making healthier choices more mainstream. If we do that by encouraging a diet culture, then so be it, we’re on the right track. I’d much rather be encouraged to care for my body image than be encouraged to consume vast amounts of sugar, fried, and processed foods as is sadly considered acceptable these days.
Mellissa Sevigny says
Things certainly seem out of whack, don’t they? Hopefully the anti-diet movement is on the way out and people will accept a healthier middle ground of not obsessing, but still making the effort. Thanks for the comment!
Kathleen says
I am intrigued by “Intuitive Eating” as written about by Evelyn Tribole. As a registered dietitian, I asked to join an intuitive eating FB group to help my dialysis patients learn intuitive eating to lose weight in order to be allowed to get a transplant. I was denied the FB group because you’re not supposed to have a goal of weight loss. But dialysis patients who don’t meet a weight criteria can’t get a transplant! I believe in mental and physical health and I am not convinced you can have health at every size. That’s my 2 cents.
Mellissa Sevigny says
Thanks for that insight Kathleen – I appreciate you taking the time to comment with your personal experience and I’m sorry you weren’t able to get into that group for the sake of your patients. I hope you are able to help them find another way to get what they need!
Gingie says
I have followed your page for many years and appreciate all of the time and effort you devote to everything you do. I love it so much, I bought your cookbook. Not everyone can eat carbs in a manner that works for them. There are many folks that probably follow you because they are diabetic or insulin resistant. Please keep doing what you do because it wonderful and helps so many people. Every time I try “intuitive eating”, I end up miserable and gain weight. Those that want to criticize what content you provide should perhaps find other resources that align with their beliefs and spend more time working on themselves.
Mellissa Sevigny says
Thanks so much Gingie, I appreciate the years of support!
Carrie Swank says
Everyone has the right to do what they think is best for themselves. No one has the right to criticize anyone else for their choices. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not entitled to force their opinion on anyone else. Unfortunately, our culture today is to become “offended” at anything we don’t agree with, instead of trying to understand or offer help or support, or just moving on.
Seven years of so-called “intuitive” eating led me to a 35 pound weight gain. I removed that weight after 8 months of adopting a low-carb / keto lifestyle. Notice I didn’t say “diet”. I found what works best for me and I realize that, just like anything else in life, weight and health are things you have to manage and work at in order to maintain. Find what works best for you – there are plenty of options to consider – and stop being offended if you don’t agree with someone else’s choice.
Thank you for this post and your recipes. I am also a vegetarian, so finding good low-carb or keto recipes is not easy. I’ve found many of yours fit my lifestyle well or can be easily adapted. Keep doing what you’re doing and don’t let those that are “offended” stop you.
Mellissa Sevigny says
Thanks Carrie, and I’m happy to hear that you are able to make my recipes work as a vegetarian. I have plans for many more recipes that aren’t so meat focused coming up soon.
Ellen says
I’m a nurse in an ER and I see a LOT. Body positivity is great but SO many health issues come from unhealthy diet and lack of activity. Our modern diet and lifestyle is causing us to be sick, anxious, and depressed. What you are doing is so important! I’ve told many people about your website. You truly make it easy to make good dietary choices. I even make a lot of your recipes even when I’m “off” keto because they’re so good!
Everyone deserves to feel good and be able to enjoy life for as long as possible. I don’t think of dieting as a punishment or a way to fit a certain beauty standard. I think of it as treating my body well and giving it the fuel it needs. For longevity. (I’m 52 and fabulous btw😜)
Love your body… Don’t eat crap food… Move it or lose it!
Mellissa Sevigny says
These are great principles to live by Ellen, thanks for sharing!
Mellissa Sevigny says
Thanks for your insights!
Amanda says
Ultimately I feel like “diet culture” and “anti diet culture” are flip sides of the same extremist coin. I don’t understand when we became a society in which presenting information suddenly make someone phobic or -ist or aggressive or any of the other buzzwords people throw around. I appreciate that you provide recipes and tips and I can take (or leave) what I feel works for me. It is just as unhealthy to enable people to be unhealthy as it is to guilt people into being “healthy”.
Mellissa Sevigny says
I agree so much with that first statement! Where is the balance? Thanks for chiming in!
Kim Reasoner says
I believe that anyone has the right to do what they want with their own health, but not impose their beliefs on others. If someone chooses to be healthy, and enjoy YOUR keto/low carb recipes, meal plans, and cookbooks, then they should be able to do so without comment from anyone. I know that you, and all of the other keto/low carb creators, have saved my life!
Diet culture/anti diet culture…who cares? I choose to call it my way of eating.
This country has gone through a revolution as social media became so prevalent. People now have a platform and an easier way to find like minded people for whatever their beliefs. I ignore negative comments and you should too. YOU and I know you’re doing the right thing.
I thank you so much for helping me and thousands of other people. You will never know how much you are appreciated!
Mellissa Sevigny says
Thanks so much Kim!