Though it doesn’t have to be this way, diet culture educates us to mistrust our bodies and their natural signals. A road toward freedom, health, and pleasure is learning to accept your body’s intuition and reject destructive patterns.
1. Recognize Diet Culture for What It Is
Diet culture advances the belief that thinner is better and that our appearance defines our value. It advises us to follow tight food rules, punish ourselves with exercise, and avoid hunger.
Diet culture is tricky, as simple eating coach Emily Davis notes. It passes for “wellness,” but eventually it ruins our connection with food and our bodies.
2. Honor Your Fullness and Hunger
Listening to the cues your body sends about hunger and fullness is among the most freeing activities you can do. Your body is quite smart and will indicate when it needs food and when it has eaten enough.
Davis notes, “You stop depending on outside rules to tell you what, when, and how much to eat when you start trusting your body’s signals.”
3. Drop the “Good” and “Bad” Food Labels
Foods labeled as “good” or “bad” in diet culture can cause guilt or shame depending on what you consume. Release these labels and concentrate on balance. Developing a healthy, sustainable relationship with food requires enjoying a range of foods, including those judged “bad.”
4. Celebrate Body Diversity
Nobody size or form is “better” than another; everyone’s body is unique. Accept your body for what it can achieve, not for appearances. “We’re conditioned to feel that only particular body shapes are valuable,” Davis says, “but that’s just not true. Every body deserves love and respect.
5. Emphasize wellness, not weight
Change your emphasis from losing weight to how you feel. You seem enthusiastic. Your sleeping is good? Are you emotionally and practically balanced? Real health results from loving your body rather than from trying to reduce it.
Reaching free from diet culture is about trusting the natural knowledge of your body and recovering its clues. Your body knows best; trust it, honor it, and it will take care of you, Davis reminds us.
