Sweat & Smiles: The Problem with Our Diet Culture
By Melissa Romano on February 24, 2020 from Sweat & Smiles
“I stopped at Trader Joe’s and got a gluten-free chocolate cupcake and I’ve been beating myself up about it since… I shouldn’t be eating all that sugar. It will lead to cancer.” I wish I were more shocked by this concern shared by one of my clients.
In my practice I usually run into two different scenarios - one an individual believes obtaining health means eating less and moving more with little understanding on the quality of food or movement; the other an individual that has an understanding of the importance of quality and has crossed over into the fear of never obtaining their standards (and also probably believe they should eat less and move more). Neither scenario leads to optimal, vibrant health.
In short, our diet culture sucks.
Our diet culture is the surprising problem behind some of our health woes.
Picture this: an individual visits their doctor for some ailment, or symptom, and a goal to feel better. Their doctor gives this patient the prescription of “weight loss”'; perhaps they go on to prescribe eating less and moving more* or perhaps they simply leave the patient with the prescription of losing weight. This individual turns to the diet industry to learn how to fill their prescription.
The diet industry is a 60 BILLION dollar PER YEAR industry, most of which is designed to profit off of a cycle where individuals experience short term success and inevitable failure; and to add insult to injury its designed to make the individual feel as if the inevitable failure is due to an insufficiency in their work ethic or will power.
Picture this: an individual has a desire to eat the highest quality foods and a perfectly balanced diet. This person turns to google, popular health books, health professionals/businesses, and research; most of which uses fear-mongering as a means of convincing individuals that they need their products, supplements or services and most of which is contradictory to another piece of equally convincing and highly researched information.
There are individuals out there called Breatharians that believe humans can live on only air and light, and claim to do it. Yet, an individual who eats a “healthy diet” by all western culture standards fears that there is no way they will be able to obtain a perfectly balanced diet without an entire cabinet full of supplements.
The fact is anything that is preventing us from optimal, vibrant health has a host of contributing root causes. Ailments, symptoms, and weight-gain are almost always byproducts of root causes. Therefore, the root causes should be addressed and the byproducts will take care of themselves. And lets go ahead and get this out of the way: your weight may not be a ‘problem’ at all considering there is no such thing as the right weight.
Our diet culture sucks. And it’s causing a great deal of stress.
While stress alone is not the singular cause of all disease, it is worth exploring when it comes to trying to put the kabash on diet culture.
According to the American Psychological Association, chronic stress is linked to the six leading causes of death: heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide.
Stress is actually listed as a leading cause in nearly all chronic illnesses. The relationship between disease and stress is complex but a little too close for comfort for me.
Even if we are doing our due diligence in obtaining the highest quality foods and ‘perfectly’ balancing our diet with the correct ratio of vitamins and nutrients (whatever that means), eating less, and moving more* yet feel unable to enjoy food just for pleasure and remain in a constant conflict with ‘getting it perfect’, diet cycling, and disregarding our minds and spirits - we will never obtain optimal, vibrant health.
So what brings us to optimal, vibrant health?
I propose turning our backs on our diet culture and turning all of that energy, attention, and intention towards kindly caring for our minds, bodies, and spirits with equal reverence.
Advocate for yourselves, find professionals who will advocate for you, be curious, listen to your body, and pay equal (if not more) reverence to your mind and spirit.
Your patient, loving witness - and advocate,
Melissa
*’Eat less, move more’ is one of the most over-used and inaccurate statements of our time.
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