The oppressive roots of diet culture and how to fight back with your fork

Diet culture is nothing new.

This story starts centuries ago, driven by racist attitudes about body size as the slave trade brought African people into Europe. Beauty standards started to shift as African women, who were naturally more full-figured, were stigmatized. White European women were encouraged to lose weight in order to show their superiority and “self control” which they believed their African slaves lacked as evidenced by their larger bodies.

Fast forward to 19th century America, where the Dietary Reform Act was keeping these ideas going strong. Pioneered by Sylvester Graham (who invented Graham crackers) and Dr. Harvey Kellogg (the founder of Kellogg’s cereal), this movement led people to believe that dieting was a moral imperative and having a thin body showed their superiority.

Since then diet culture has continued to teach people, especially women, that they must be thin in order to be accepted. Diet culture, rooted in oppression, continues to be one of the most oppressive tools there is, literally built to shrink women and stigmatize people who do not fit into the thin white ideal.

Today, diet culture has infiltrated most areas of our lives and most recently has made its home in the wellness world. Contrary to its name, wellness culture isn’t really about wellness at all.

WELLNESS CULTURE PROMOTES PRIVILEGE! It sells the idea that health has a certain look (thin and white) and requires a significant amount of time and money to achieve. Wellness culture, like diet culture, is especially harmful to those in marginalized communities.

It encourages people to do whatever it takes to assimilate into white society.
It demonizes traditional cultural foods and makes us believe that there is
something wrong with the way our bodies naturally exist.
It ignores the fact that people may be healthier at higher weights depending on
their sex or race.
It is simply one of the most inaccessible parts of modern life and it neglects a
majority of people, making society believe it is their fault for not living up to unattainable standards.

Every time women diet we are showing society that we accept our place in the world as less than our white, male counterparts. Naomi Wolf wrote in her 1991 classic, The Beauty Myth that “a cultural fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history”.

Do you call yourself anti-racist? Do you call yourself a feminist? Do you believe in equality?

If so, it is important to understand how racism and sexism has impacted our relationships with food and how giving yourself unconditional permission to eat can be a powerful way of fighting back. Sometimes it’s hard to find internal motivation for change, so let this be a reminder that this is way bigger than our body weight or shape.

Every time we eat we are making a statement. Every time we refuse to ignore our basic human needs we are telling the world that society does not get to decide how we should look and that we refuse to be distracted.

Letting your body exist as it was meant to be is a radical act, every bite a mini rebellion. Who’s got a fork?