Dietetics:CommunicationCollaboration/Diet Culture on Campus 2023
A guide for UBC students on how to identify and respond to diet culture in different university settings.
Trigger Warning: This article discusses potentially sensitive topics including fat-phobia, disordered eating, and anxiety. Take a moment to reflect on how these topics may impact your well-being and check out the health and well-being services that UBC provides: https://students.ubc.ca/health
Before reading this article, consider the following:
- Have you ever avoided certain foods because you think they are too high in calories?
- Have you ever avoided eating in front of others because you are worried about what they might think?
- Have you ever felt guilty after eating?
- Have you ever worried about being overweight or gaining weight?
Take some time to reflect on your responses to the questions above and the feelings they evoke. You might find it a useful exercise to revisit these questions as you continue through this article!
What is Diet Culture?
Diet culture is a system of beliefs and social expectations which promote the idea that thinness symbolizes happiness, success, and good health. This culture promotes obsession on the body’s appearance shape, and offers untrue promises that one specific diet can provide the perfect body. This may lead to strict self-imposed rules concerning what, when, and how different foods can be eaten. Furthermore, eating, physical activity, and other behaviours may become forms of reward or punishment, undermining personal relationships with said activities. This focus on self-deprecation can simultaneously lead people to under-value the importance of their psychological, physical, and general well-being.
Christy Harrison, a registered dietitian, put it very well when she said "Diet culture is like the water, and most people in our society are like the young fish—they have no idea it's even there." Diet culture is everywhere and we all can unconsciously support it. Be kind to yourself as you explore this topic.
How is Diet Culture Harmful?
According to 2019 EDFC (Eating Disorders Foundation of Canada) data, younger Canadians are increasingly engaging in dieting behaviour which may put them at risk of developing an eating disorder and other health-compromising conditions. And 12-30% of girls and 9-25% of boys aged 10-14 years old report that they have participated in dieting to lose weight. Diet culture can affect multiple aspects of our physical, physiological, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. Food restrictions or “yo-yo dieting” can lead to poor physical health and decreased energy. These activities can also impact mental health, resulting in anxiety and stress related to feelings of fear, shame, and guilt about their food choices. Finally, diet culture can impact social interactions by decreasing joy derived from food related activities.
How to Talk about Diet Culture?
Diet culture is something you may notice pervading everyday conversations with friends. Consider how you discuss, think about, and treat yourself and those around you; you may find you have certain preconceptions about the way you or others look, eat, and enjoy food. Recognizing these biases is the first step in responding to diet culture!
Remember, although diet culture is everywhere, it can affect everyone in different ways. People may have different comfort levels when acknowledging or discussing diet culture, and that’s okay! Approaching conversations with respect and openness is an important step in addressing its influence. It is not your job to change a peers perspective, and accepting that someone might not be quite ready to engage in a challenging conversation is an important element of respect. Learning to navigate sensitive topics such as this can be both empowering and confusing, but practice can be a great way to get more comfortable.
Let’s try some scenarios out to practice respectful discussion about diet culture!
Examples of Diet Culture in the University Setting - How to respond to diet culture in each setting
At the ARC:
You’re working out with a friend, they tell you that they just had a cupcake and that they need to hit the treadmill to burn it off.
- Why is this Diet Culture?: This remark is representative of a “punishment and reward” mentality about food and exercise. It’s okay for food to be delicious and for exercise to be fun on its own, one does not need to compensate for the other.
- How to respond to it: If comfortable, you could address your friend’s comments by telling them that they should not feel guilty because they ate a cupcake and that food is also meant to be enjoyed. You could also bring up how working out should not be used as a form of punishment for eating certain foods and instead it should be something you truly enjoy doing. You could then ask them about what sort of activities and foods bring them joy to redirect the conversion away from diet culture.
Lunchtime at the Nest:
You’re having lunch with a friend at the Nest, you bring out your lunch that you brought from home, and your friend comments “you’re going to eat ALL of that? Someone must be hungry!”
- Why is this Diet Culture?: Shaming comments such as this can be harmful, even if only meant as a joke. You know your body best, and you should feel comfortable eating the type and quantity of food which makes you feel good.
- How to respond to it: You could reply to your friend by saying “yes, I am going to eat ALL of this because it will nourish my body and I LOVE my mom’s home cooked meals. Making comments like that can be really harmful and make people feel guilty for nourishing their bodies.” If you don’t feel like directly engaging with your friend’s comments you could set a boundary and say something like “ I’m okay with how much I eat and don’t really want to talk about that right now.”
Coming back to school from Reading/Winter break:
You’ve just come back to school from Winter break, and while talking to your roommate you catch them making comments on how much “bad” food they ate over the holidays with family and how they want to eat “clean” for the new year.
- Why is this Diet Culture?: Using moralizing language such as “good” or “bad” can lead to feelings of shame and anxiety, while perpetuating the false idea that foods belong to one category or another.
- How to respond to it: Depending on your comfort level with your roommate, you could respond to their comments by saying how labelling foods as either “good” or “bad” may only contribute to feelings of guilt when eating. It might be a better idea to focus on eating foods they enjoy instead. You could also provide a gentle reminder about how eating with others is important socially and a way to connect with loved ones.
“Freshman 15”
You are about to start your first year at UBC. You’ve heard a lot about the “freshman 15” and you think to yourself “I don't want to gain weight” → or should this scenario be a how to respond situation (your friend is talking about freshman 15, etc.)
- Why is this Diet Culture?:
- How to respond to it: Diet culture is everywhere, so weight gain is a concern many might have. However, it is important to understand that gaining weight or being in a larger body is not indicative of poor health. Making the transition to university is already hard, and adding pressure to not gain weight will only lead to negative outcomes. Instead, try focusing on developing healthy habits such as eating when you’re hungry, eating balanced meals and moving your body in a way you enjoy.
Other Tips
- Things to remember
- Listen to your body, it knows best. Eating when you’re hungry and nourishing your body with food that makes you feel good is one of the best ways to respond to diet culture.
- Remember that body’s come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Size does not equate with health or lack of health.
- Diets can promise unrealistic results and often do not work long term. This can have negative effects on mental, physical and emotional health.
- It’s okay to unfollow or block social media accounts that are harmful to your relationship with food.
- Diet culture is everywhere and can affect people in different ways. Be patient and kind with yourself and others.
- It is never too late to start developing a good relationship with food.
Conclusion
Diet culture can be very detrimental to our health and well being. It can negatively impact people's relationship to food and their body. Knowing how to respond to it can help us move towards a society that does not equate health to weight, a society that believes that anybody of any shape or size can be healthy, happy, and successful. These practice scenarios are just examples of everyday situations you may experience, but by no means do they cover every unique experience you might have. Recognizing diet culture is the first step in a long journey of deconstructing its impacts, but as a community we can make a difference.
Other Resources
For more information, check out these great resources!
https://recreation.ucsd.edu/2021/01/diet-culture-social-media
https://balancedtx.com/blog/how-diet-culture-impacts-collegestudents
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0267997
Authors
This blog post was written in spring of 2023 by Una Bach, Christopher Calao, Elena Kwan, Julliane Isidto, Soyoung Jung, and Gavenet Sohal as part of FNH 480.
Pamphlet
Diet Culture on Campus 2023 pamphlet https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VWC1b1U6X5pjqqGg90HD-5ufpM8FijTo/view?usp=sharing