Today – May 6, 2019 is International NoDiet Day. NEDIC (National Eating Disorder Information Centre) tells us that No Diet Day is “a day for organizations and individuals to push back against the industries and messages that encourage us to engage in dangerous dieting behaviours.”
Push back…yes, let’s do it! As someone who educates and advocates against the dangers of dieting, this is an important day for the work I do and an opportunity to engage in discussion and self-reflection about our own relationship with food. To do this, I find it is helpful to pause and ask ourselves: What is a diet? How do I know if I am dieting?
The first hurdle to understanding is being aware that there are two definitions of the word diet. The first is a broad term that is meant to encapsulate what we eat and can be applied to individuals or whole groups of people. For instance we can say “Sydney eats a vegetarian diet.” Or “The diet of the ancient Romans was shaped by climate and agricultural practices.” So, diet in this context simply means ‘what we eat’. It is purely a descriptive term, and there is no implied action around it.
This is in contrast to the second meaning of the word that is our focus today. This use of the word diet usually refers to individuals and the food choices they make with an intended outcome attached to that choice, usually weight loss. It is important to understand that dieting is experienced on a continuum, ranging from the deep self starvation that can happen in the grips of a devastating eating disorder to something that might seem harmless on the other end like giving up sugar, or attempting to ‘eat clean’ in the weeks leading up to a big event so that we can fit into an outfit or feel comfortable getting our photo taken.
Many people believe that we can avoid the dangerous aspects of dieting by not engaging in the more severe and restrictive diet fads like eating cotton balls or buying into the more well known commercial plans like Beach Body or Weight Watchers. But it is important to know that the dangerous diet mindset does not restrict itself to drastic or easily identifiable weight loss schemes.
You may argue that I am erroneously lumping together dieting and disordered eating behaviour. But I believe the difference between dieting and a diagnosable eating disorder is only in the measure of degree. It is true that not everyone who is dieting has a diagnosable eating disorder, but I believe any and all dieting creates disorder in our relationship with food which contributes to disharmony in how we relate to our bodies and throws a wrench into our ability to care for ourselves in loving and consistent ways.
So considering all this let’s again ask ourselves what is a diet? A diet is any kind of plan, philosophy, approach, way of eating that has an expectation or hope of weight loss attached to it. It bears repeating: If there is any expectation or hope of weight loss attached to the food choices you are making, you are on a diet.
Now for many of us weight loss and health are so tied up together that in reading the above paragraph, what you may have heard me say is that if we are making food choices with an aim to support our health and well being we are on a diet, and that trying to be healthy is bad. That is not the case. I fully support anyone pursuing self-care to improve their health and wellbeing. Dieting and danger come into play when we measure our success at positively impacting our health through food by how much our body does or doesn’t change. Body size is a false measure of health and wellbeing. We are much better served by looking to other factors like our mental well being, stress levels, energy levels, ability to sleep. For physical indicators looking blood pressure, strength or cardio vascular health are much more helpful when considering our health care efforts than how much our body size may have or have not changed.
Here are some examples of what we call a diet mentality or diet mindset that can help you determine if your relationship with food is an unhelpful one.
-You have lots of rules about food.
-If you break/don’t follow a rule you feel like you’ve failed. -You think of food in terms of good/bad or clean(which is called moralizing food). -When you eat food in your ‘bad’ category you feel like you’ve been bad and you berate yourself.
-You sometimes exercise as punishment for eating certain foods.
-Thinking/worrying about food takes up a high percentage of your mind space and emotional energy.
-Weight loss is a motivating factor in your food and wellness choices.
If you relate to any of these statements, No Diet Day is an opportunity for you to consider what it would be like to reject the diet mentality. What if you were no longer at war with your body and the food you ate was no longer a battle zone that required constant vigilance? What if you could eat without fear or shame? Or move your body for enjoyment and well being?
No Diet Day is an invitation to make peace. To wave a flag of truce and approach food with the enjoyment and body autonomy we had when we were toddlers. To make healthy choices from a place of self-love and self-care rather than self-hate.
Saying no to diets is a great place to start.