We hear a lot about diet culture these days and a lot of people are against it, and I am too.
But there are aspects of a well balanced meal plan that people get confused with diet culture.
When I started my health journey, I was a little confused about these differences. I’ve learned a lot about the two sides and I want you to know the difference, too!
There are a few main differences between dieting and balanced eating so here they are.
What is diet culture?
Diet culture is all about controlling what and how much you eat in order to control your body image. They are all about using diets to change your body, usually to lose weight.
Outside versus inside focus.
In diet culture, the focus is on your body on the outside. The goal is to lose weight or change your body in some way. Most of the time this is through restriction of food.
A lot of women think that when they lose weight they will feel better, but most of the time this is not true and they do not end up feeling better.
The more weight you lose, the more weight you will want to lose. You will never be satisfied when focusing on your weight.
On the other side, balanced eating focuses on the inside. The focus is on how we FEEL instead of how we look.
Turning the focus to how we feel changes the perspective from how we look to how we are fueling our bodies.
When we are focusing on feeling good in our body, we will start to take actions that help us feel good.
Restriction versus nutrients focus.
Restriction of food can be harmful and damaging to your body. Our body, our organs, and our immune system all need food to function properly. This is why diet culture can be so harmful to us.
There are two main types of restriction: restricting calorie intake and restricting carbohydrate intake. Both types can be dangerous to the body.
Carbohydrates have become a “scary” food to a lot of people. Diet culture made it this way. A lot of women think if they eat carbs they will gain weight. This can only be true if you don’t have a balance of other foods.
However, carbs main job is to give ENERGY. So without them, we won’t have the energy to perform tasks that need to be done or to live our lives the way we would like.
Basically the same thing happens with calorie restriction. We need calories to function well.
(By the way, I’m very against counting calories. This is just an example of why restricting can be harmful.)
Our bodies will literally stop working properly.
Let me ask you this.. why does the number matter?
When we shift the focus from the number to the nutrients we are putting in our body, we are able to pay attention to what foods are doing, what foods are making us feel good, and knowing that we are fueling our body with what it needs.
We need nutrition, not calories.
Calorie counting versus listening to your body.
Restriction is very calorie focused. Whether the goal is to decrease the amount of calories or the amount of food groups, the goal is the same. Diet culture is all about taking away.
Balanced eating on the other hand is about listening to your body. Listening can be a difficult thing to do and takes time to learn.
However, our bodies are VERY smart and they will tell you when they need something if you listen to it.
The problem is that we learn to tune out what our body is saying for what society is saying.
Society is saying “lose weight,” “be skinny,” “try this new diet.” It’s time we stop listening to society and start listening to our bodies.
We don’t need to be “skinny.” We need nutrients and to feel good.
If you don’t feel good in your body, calorie counting or losing weight will not help.
Shift your mindset from calories to how you feel and you will start to feel good!
Here’s the important piece:
Balanced eating does NOT mean eating all junk. This is not the opposite of diet culture necessarily.
Balanced eating is having a balance of the nutrients we need and the food we want (like chocolate 😉)
We need to create a more balanced view of food in our society. It’s not one side or the other extreme. Let’s look at the middle and see what we can do for our bodies!!
If you want to learn more about how to use food to fuel your body and eat in a more balanced way, this is one of the many things I teach in the Beloved Bodies Project. You can learn more here!
