Do we all have an eating disorder?

My musings on diet culture

Content Warning: ED, disordered eating, body image, dysmorphia

Our culture, American culture, Western culture, has an eating disorder.

I cannot conceive what a “healthy” relationship to food could be. Health, weight loss, detoxes are all tied up with capitalism. I can think of no neutral way to approach what goes into my body. Even just following what tastes good and feels good is impossible, as all is dictated by overprocessed, manufactured food. And the doctors are fatphobic. How on earth are we supposed to be healthy?! What does that even mean?

It’s becoming well-known now that diets, especially low-calorie diets, do not work. The data is clear: the majority of diets fail. People eventually return to their body’s “neutral.” Not just superficially, cholesterol and blood pressure will return to the same levels as they were after months of dieting.

And yet, capitalism LOVES diet culture, so it cannot let it die. Rebrand, rebrand, rebrand: keto, intermittent fasting, all-lowercase brands offering low-carb meal kits. It’s better for your health! It’s definitely not an eating di$order.

So how do we deal with the concept of weight loss? When someone we know is happier having lost weight? When Adele does it? Do we congratulate them?

Sources say no. Telling someone how much better they look reinforces beauty standards, and they and everyone around you will assume you think fatness is ugly. It reinforces the idea that they have to remain thin in order to get your praise. The presence of shame around your body will decimate any semblance of healthy relationship to food.

Right now, the discourse has concluded that other people’s weight is “none of our business.” From a feminist perspective, absolutely, a person’s body isn’t for our consumption, let alone judgement. But when our identities are so incorporated in how we perceive each other, as well as cultural attitudes, it’s still important to have perspective. And right now, we have too many disparate ideas of health. Health does not have one body type or weight. So how do we react when someone says they’re dieting?

Girls start worrying about the size of their body at age 3. By the time I reached middle school, I knew a number of girls who were on “diets.” They often were imitating their mothers. I also knew many with eating disorders. It was so ubiquitous that it didn’t even seem like a big deal. They imitated what they saw in media. By high school, I was so exhausted from having to reassure every friend and myself that we were not fat, and therefore undesirable.

But that leap from eating disorders, which really started being taken seriously by media in the 90s, hasn’t extended to include your average fad diet. They’re all connected! I don’t know how to react when people talk about food, or their bodies, or diets anymore. I’m glad movements like Health at Every Size exist and are unilaterally condemning fatphobia and diet culture. It is impossible to accept people if you’re holding on to the idea that skinnier is better. It’s the only conclusion that makes sense to me! As a part of intersection of systemic racism, misogyny, and most of all, capitalism, no moral value should be attributed to the individual’s reaction to its society.