8 Methods To Help with the Frustration of Unlearning Diet Culture

By Raegan Perkins, RDN, LD

Reviewed by David Orozco, MS, RDN, LD, CIEC, EP-C

Have you recently heard about or started the journey of eating intuitively? If so, one or more of these experiences may feel very familiar to you. Or, you may have found this article because, well, you’re frustrated that diet culture still gets a rise out of you emotionally. Hopefully this article can provide you with a few reasons why that emotion is okay and ways to manage it.

• You’re checking out social media, having a good time seeing funny stories or reels, next you see an ad for a diet or weight loss workout program or an influencer suggesting a cleanse/tea/supplement to help lose those “stubborn pounds” or to achieve that mystical flat stomach.

• Maybe you’ve already “cleansed” your social media feed by actively unfollowing, blocking, or selecting not interested to different ads and accounts that no longer support your thoughts about food and health. THEN a dear friend of yours adds on their story raving about the new diet they started, or the book they are reading whose title screams diet culture trap, or already started the before/after photo “accountability” BS. Really, the list here goes on… and on… and, well, on.

• You meet with friends for food and/or beverages and the conversation veers toward their new year’s resolutions and what they think is wrong with their health and food habits. In years past you’d join in on this self-shaming conversation but this year you recognize the stigmatizing language being used.

In either of these scenarios, more than likely you feel so many emotions about this. At the end of the day, you feel a little lost, a little alone, a little annoyed, a little unsure about this non-diet approach to food. Maybe you feel like there isn’t ANYONE else that gets your perspective or realizes how harmful the unintended shame they are promoting is. Maybe you feel mad because you just want everyone to enjoy food without it being good or bad. Maybe you just want to stop thinking about food and health so much.

These emotions you are experiencing are a normal and beneficial part of rejecting the diet mentality. So much so that the authors of Intuitive Eating® suggest the first thing we do is to get mad at diet culture. This is a very helpful step in reclaiming your relationship with food as your own, instead of dictated by systems and people around us.

So, why is it okay to be mad, frustrated, sad, hopeless, or whatever, with unlearning diet culture?

Your [insert emotion here] makes sense because without knowing it you used to (and maybe still do) associate certain body sizes and shapes with moral virtues. Because now that you see the harm diet culture has caused you, you may wish you could “flip the switch” on your own thoughts. Because you realize how many years you’ve spent thinking negatively about food and yourself. Because it feels exhausting to unlearn diet culture while so many around you are perpetuating it. I think you get my point, there are many valid reasons why you are [insert emotion here].

The “because-s” could go on, and feel free to share your personal “because” as a private comment. I would love to hear your because and sometimes written expression can help (see ‘So now what?’ for more).

Will you feel like this about diet culture forever?

Short answer, yes and no. Truly like anything there isn’t a black and white answer to this, life in general is shades of color. As we start to be curious about all the areas diet culture is present around us and, in our thoughts, the frustration and other emotions will ebb and flow just as they should. Honestly, it gets easier.

My experience has been a spectrum. From getting so mad at ads I turn off the TV and responding to friends and family with a “No, weight loss is wrong! This is the way” to now, where I realize they are also human and only know what they know. They grew up hearing many of the same weight centric “facts” as I did. It’s not my job to force feed anyone information, although I can drop seeds and be intentional about what conversations I engage in.

Is there such a thing as being too mad at diet culture?

Probably. If your response to diet culture is impacting your life in a way that isn’t serving you or is interfering with your day-to-day, it might be helpful to work with a professional. Maybe a dietitian and therapist can help as you go through the unlearning diet culture process.

So now what?

What can we do to promote getting into the ebb portion of the ebb and flow rotation of unlearning diet culture? Here are some suggestions to try.

• Self-compassion is a huge part of promoting the ebb portion. Shaming yourself for your previous thoughts and beliefs, before being introduced to the anti-diet world, promotes more frustration, and really blocks your ability to move on. Much of the anti-diet approach is compassion based and tries to promote letting go of shame, which is why shaming yourself can block your progress, remember humans only know what we know.
• Get curious! When you notice a diet-culture thought pop up, pause for a moment and ask, “where might this thought come from?” or “what has happened in my life for that to be my thought?” Usually after identifying the source, it’s easier to let it go.
• Find support. There are many online groups you could join and Orozco Nutrition has started a support group to help build our local non-diet community.
• Read/listen to a book or two to help you feel supported and to reinforce your shift in thinking about food, health, and nutrition.
• Keep a written or audio journal about unlearning diet culture. Writing or verbalizing what’s going on is powerful and will give you an opportunity to see your growth if you choose to reflect on previous journal entries.
• Intentionally “detox” your social media feed (Yes, I wanted to be ironic by using detox). Use the algorithms to benefit you and join us in standing up to the lame diet ads, they ARE irrelevant and spam-y. You can choose to unfollow, hide, take a break, restrict, mute, or delete accounts and ads on most social media platforms, this is a way to influence what you see on your feeds.
• Find a podcast like the One Small Bite podcast or others about body acceptance, fighting the diet mentality, Intuitive Eating, or other similar topics. Here are several we suggest.
• If you have the time and financial privileges, invest in working with a HAES or Intuitive Eating aligned dietitian nutritionist and/or therapist. This can provide you with at least one supportive person in your journey and a time in your busy life dedicated to rebuilding the relationship with food you want. A dietitian can also provide you with great information about why diet culture myths are- in fact- myths. Debunking things like, “you are what you eat”, “carbs are bad”, “red meat is killing us”, or “an apple cider vinegar cleanse is the best way to detox your body,” etc.

Unlearning diet-culture can be challenging and as you go along this journey your learned diet-culture will probably come up in different ways and at times you didn’t expect, it may be helpful to flag or save this blog to reference in those times of frustration as a reminded that it is OKAY. My last little reminder for perspective is think about how long you have lived with diet-culture present in your life and think about how long you have been trying to unlearn diet culture, for most it is decades lived within diet-culture and only a few months or years of unlearning diet-culture. It makes sense for your journey of unlearning to take time and for it to invoke some strong emotions. It is apart of most people’s process and although still frustrating these emotions can be very helpful in the process of unlearning diet-culture and developing the relationship with food you want to have.