Ways Diet Culture Shows Up In The Summer
With summer comes warmer, more pleasant weather, increasing the messages we receive concerning clothing and having “beach-ready” bodies, starting diets, beginning workout regimes, and cleanses. In simpler terms, the summer season, unfortunately, correlates with a rise in content on social media and in everyday conversations regarding diet culture.
What Is Diet Culture?
According to the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit, diet culture is a system of beliefs that “equates physical appearance and body shape with moral virtue and health.” Weight loss is an achievement, eating certain ways determines self-worth, and bodies are valued only if they meet a particular ideal. This cultivates a social environment where people no longer eat freely, connect with their bodies, or tune into their overall well-being outside of obtaining thinness.
How Does Diet Culture Show Up?
In the summer, diet culture shows up in many ways, partly due to the rising temperatures and consequently wearing clothes that show more skin, all the while knowing that summer is also on its way. This paves the way for the infamous term “bikini body” and how to work towards it. Magazines, social media, and conversations are flooded with how you can lose x amount of pounds in x amount of days with x diet and what exercise routines will help “tone and trim” your body down. As you may know, this obsession with food and body image can lead to detrimental impacts on the mind and body, more specifically, leading to eating disorders.
Innocent comments made by coworkers, friends, or family concerning trying to “eat healthier” can be incredibly unhelpful and possibly triggering and are just one small way diet culture can manifest. Wearing shorts, crop tops, and even swimsuits can feel like a matter of life or death if you do not feel like your body meets the criteria of being “flawless, beautiful, or good.”
Instead of being about to enjoy the warmer weather outside in ways that fuel your mind, body, and soul, you are stuck in a vicious cycle of warring with your body in an attempt to manipulate how it looks.
How You Can Enjoy the Summer Without Diet Culture
- Switch up the social media accounts you follow to more anti-diet culture ones.
- Appreciate all that your body does for you and what it will allow you to do this summer.
- Surround yourself with people who speak kindly of themselves and do not rave about the latest diet.
- Try out new events, activities, and experiences with friends and loved ones to create memories.
As we welcome the summer, we must recognize the influence of diet culture. From societal pressures to conform to unrealistic body standards to the subtle comments from others, diet culture can infiltrate every aspect of our lives, impacting our mental and physical well-being.
By challenging diet culture and cultivating self-compassion, we can reclaim the joy of summertime. Let’s embrace the warmer weather as an opportunity to celebrate our bodies and create memories with loved ones.
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Reference
“Why Diet Culture Might Be Doing You More Harm than You Think.” Why Diet Culture Might Be Doing You More Harm Than You Think | The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit, www.wechu.org/nutrition/why-diet-culture-might-be-doing-you-more-harm-you-think#:~:text=Every%20year%20in%20late%20winter,using%20a%20social%20media%20app. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.
This post was written by BALANCE Blog Contributor, Tori Barkosky (she/her).
Tori is a recent graduate of St. Catherine University, having earned a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Nutrition Science. Tori is passionate about all things related to intuitive eating, HAES, mental health, body respect, eating disorders, and disordered eating. She also geeks out on neuroscience and loves studying the brain and its anatomy. Tori currently works as a Mental Health Practitioner at an eating disorder clinic. Outside work, she enjoys practicing yoga, exploring nature, and drinking coffee.
