We’ve All Grown Up in Diet Culture — And It’s Time to Name the Nonsense

We’ve All Grown Up in Diet Culture — And It’s Time to Name the Nonsense

Diet culture is everywhere — and it has been since the day we were born. It shows up in conversations, TV shows, books, classrooms, workplaces, gyms, and across our social feeds. Most importantly, it lives in a quiet voice inside our own heads. It’s so common, so accepted, that many of us don’t realize that it doesn’t have to be this way.

The harm of diet culture goes far beyond body dissatisfaction or disordered eating. Yes, those are serious consequences — and they’re common. In fact, 1 in 5 people will develop an eating disorder by age 40. Even more staggering, only 20% will ever receive treatment, and every 52 minutes, someone in the U.S. dies as a result.

But the damage doesn’t stop there. Diet culture affects nearly all of us — in deep, daily, and often invisible ways. It drains our energy. It fills our precious brain space with food “should” and “shouldn’t” rules, body monitoring, and self-criticism. It lands us in cycles of guilt, shame, comparison, and striving for a body size, weight, or appearance that is not actually possible in real life.

And here’s the most important thing to understand: it’s all based on a lie.

Diet culture — with its artificial-appearance influencers, “wellness” rules, and praise for shrinking bodies — is a false narrative. One we’ve absorbed from media, advertising, and even the adults who raised us. They meant well — but they were taught the same lie, too.

This is a lie that is a generational story—told so many times, in so many persuasive ways, we’ve come to believe it without question.

And when we inevitably “fail” to meet its impossible standards, we blame ourselves. We think we’re too weak, unmotivated, or undisciplined. We assume we just don’t measure up to “those people” — the ones who look like the models or influencers in altered, photoshopped, or AI-generated images. Images, let’s be honest, that bear little resemblance to real, nourished human bodies.

This is our cultural inheritance. Yours and mine. This is what we’ve been born into.

Is it what we want to pass on to our kids?

Diet Culture: The Water We’ve All Been Swimming In

From childhood through adulthood, we’ve been told smaller bodies are better bodies. “Healthy” equals “skinny.” Some foods are “bad,” others are “good.” And enjoying the “wrong” ones? That’s a moral failing.

We watched parents skip meals, friends jump on diet trends, celebrities praised for weight loss and shamed for weight gain. We saw “New You in 30 Days” ads and heard coaches say we had to “earn” our food. Our young minds absorbed the message: this wasn’t about health — it was about worth.

The Madness of Diet Culture

Let’s call out a few examples that highlight just how absurd it is:

• “Beach Body” campaigns
  These suggest we must meet an arbitrary beauty standard before we can wear and/or feel good –truly GOOD—in a swimsuit. Fact: if you have a body and a beach, you’ve got a beach body. Judging beauty based on cellulite or body fat? That’s diet culture talking. And it’s nonsense.
• XXX-calorie diets — for adults
  Many marketed diets recommend caloric intakes suitable for toddlers. Not only is that unrealistic, but it’s also physically and mentally harmful. Spoiler alert to those who don’t already know: Undereating, undernourishing, restricting, dieting (call it what you like) leaves us physically and mentally worse off.
• “Clean” eating
  Sounds healthy, right? But it’s fear-based restriction disguised as wellness. It assigns morality to food: cookies = bad, salads = good. It reinforces the harmful idea that trusting your body will lead to disaster. (See spoiler alert above.)
• Fasting, detox teas, and “cheat days”
  Your body already detoxes itself. You don’t need cayenne-lemon water or to feel guilt for eating. Calling normal eating a “cheat” only deepens shame — a core tool of diet culture. (See spoiler alert, above.)

We could go for miles with, but we’d rather hear from you.

Consider this a virtual ModernWell chalk board:
What’s the most ridiculous diet culture message you’ve ever heard- either as a child, or as an adult?

Email me at lradzak@withall.org with the subject line “Diet Culture”. We won’t save your email address and we won’t share your example without your advance permission. But your experience with diet culture really matters to us.

About WithAll & the Author:
This article is brought to you by WithAll, a nonprofit committed to ending eating disorders by addressing the root causes — including the everyday ways we talk about food and bodies. Lisa Radzak, the author of this post, the Executive Director of WithAll. After her own experience with an eating disorder, she’s passionate about helping adults name and challenge the diet culture messages we’ve absorbed so we can create a different path for the next generation. To discover more about WithAll and get real-life support for the way you talk to kids about food and body image, visit withall.org.