THE ONLY WEIGHT I’M LOSING THIS JANUARY IS TOXIC MESSAGING FROM MY MIND.

THE ONLY WEIGHT I’M LOSING THIS JANUARY IS TOXIC MESSAGING FROM MY MIND.

DIET CULTURE IS YELLING AT ME FROM EVERY CORNER – AND I’M HERE TO FIGHT BACK. 

I’m not going to lie it’s been a little hard to be on social media lately. I’ve been targeted by a lot of weight loss, diet fads and bad shapewear ads. I’ve seen the usual uptick in ‘before’ selfies by friends who swear this is the year they’re going to lose that five pounds, that they’re avoiding the ‘bad’ foods and asking where to find the best weight loss shakes. I’ve been avoiding my feeds to avoid the feelings. Becoming more aware of how okay I am in my body and the way it moves has also made me more aware of how society still feels and wants to look.

Would I really be doing myself and others justice if I avoided in silence, though?

Would it be fair to myself and to others to sit back and hide from all of it instead of standing up against it?

I’ve noticed the increase in posts yelling ‘diet culture isn’t bad!’. I’ve seen the arguments on both sides, I’ve seen the fight against the body positivity movement, I see it all. I see this misunderstanding and the fake facts. I see the companies targeting us to make money off us at any costs. I spend more time on here searching and reading and absorbing than I’d like to admit.

I’ve thought a lot about this. How to talk about good dieting vs bad dieting, how to justify weight loss outside of diet culture.

So I want to leave you with this.

Diet culture isn’t losing weight for an actual, justified reason. It’s weight loss pills, unhealthy weight loss regimens and the forcefulness of only being healthy and normal IF you’re skinny. It’s weight loss teas and extremely restricted diets with no scientific baking. It’s women and men who claim they’re health champions when they actually have no training to say so – they just read a pamphlet before they started selling a product. It’s being promised dramatic loss in a short time span. Diet culture is being force fed the idea that you HAVE to lose weight and HAVE to be skinny. That’s what the fight is against.

It’s important to want to be losing weight for yourself and in a way that is respectful to your body, not because society is making you feel like you should be losing the weight.

If you’ve joined a gym, started a diet and made yourself a weight loss goal for this year, are you really doing it for you or because you feel like you have to?

Are you restricting your diet and consistently sad about it, or are you happy with the food you’re eating?

Do you feel empowered and strong when you leave the gym, or are you finishing your workout feeling lost and exhausted?

Are you happy making these changes or do they feel like a burden?

I would never shame someone for wanting to feel good in their skin. But I will shame anyone who force feeds you an idea of what feeling good I your skin should be.