Diets Are a Cult

Est 10 min read

Diet culture is our systems, cultural values, and beliefs that value thinness and elevate thinness above all else. It gives a message that thinness equals virtue and is based on white supremacy and anti-fat bias. It equates your value and your worth with being thin. It causes people to try to control and manage their bodies to meet this thin ideal beauty standard. 

“Diet Culture is a system of beliefs and practices that elevates thin bodies above all others, often interpreting thinness as a sign of both health and virtue. It mandates weight loss as a way of increasing social status, strengthening character, and accessing thin privilege.” - What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon

I recommend a few books for dismantling your own internalized diet culture messaging.

1. Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings: Discusses how diet culture came to be and its roots in white supremacy and racism.
2. The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor: Talks about the ladder of bodily hierarchy and how we're all trying to get to that place of being at the top.
3. More Than a Body by Lindsey and Lexie Kite: Talks about how our value and worth are not tied to how we look and that our body is good regardless of its appearance. 

Is diet culture a cult? Are diets culty? A friend of mine told me about this podcast, A Little Bit Culty. She was saying how she thought diets are actually a cult. It got me thinking and googling. I was checking out the Boyd Cult Scale and found a lot of similarities. 

There are 10 factors:

1. Information control. To what degree are followers not allowed to read materials regarding group structure? I wouldn't say that people aren't allowed to read other information, but diet culture definitely influences the literature that's out there. Even the science and the research are often heavily influenced by diet culture. Research around food addiction, for example, is often self reported binge type behavior. It's not controlled for whether restriction is happening; restriction definitely causes an increase in occupation with food and binge type behavior. It's not accounting for the fact that we've all been instilled, that if we eat beyond fullness, it's considered a binge and that there's something wrong with us, and that it’s bad. So, it definitely has influenced the literature that's out there. It's also pervasive in the media that we consume.
   
2. Devotion to the leader. To what degree does the group encourage love and devotion to the leader of the group? I wouldn't say there's a specific leader; it's more like love and devotion (or preoccupation as I would call it) to the idea of thinness and looking a certain way. You can take my Quiz to find out if you are preoccupied. 
   
3. Dependence. To what degree is the follow up behavior specified and directed towards the doctrine and the leader commandments so that this guides the follower’s decision? The doctrine of thinness is valued above all else and definitely guides people's decisions. Diets inherently cause this dependence because you go on a diet, it lowers your metabolism, reduces your muscle mass, and increases your preoccupation with food. It basically tells your body you're in a famine. You'll likely then have the pendulum swing and eat in a way that feels out of control, making you feel like there's something wrong with you and you need to go back on a diet. You will also have to maintain a restrictive eating plan to keep the weight off. Diets and diet culture definitely create this dependence.
   
4. Coercion. To what degree are followers manipulated to enter the group and to remain in a group by instilling fear, shame, or guilt by humiliation or public embarrassment threats, or emotional blackmail? This is where anti-fat bias comes in. People are absolutely shamed and humiliated for being in larger bodies, not “trying” hard enough, “giving up on themselves,” “letting themselves go,” and eating in a way that is considered “gluttonous.” I would absolutely say that coercion is part of this. You are ostracized from the group if you don't look a certain way or if you're not at least trying to pursue looking a certain way.
   
5. Mystification. To what degree do followers learn a special language and interpretation of symbols that creates an alternate mindset from which they view reality? All these diets have you count calories, use specific rules, and you have to do these check-ins. There's absolutely a special language that goes along with dieting, and it shifts your mindset. I can't tell you how many clients I've worked with that literally can't stop counting calories because all they have to do is glance at something, and they know exactly how many calories or how many points are in that food.
   
6. Disassociation. To what degree are followers asked to remain in an altered state of awareness outside of their grounded state of awareness affecting their ability to function normally in our personalities? Dieting actually decreases your ability to be attuned to your body and increases compartmentalization and dissociation. You’re asked to disregard your hunger signals, which is a part of survival. You’re asked to restrict, ignore or push away the signals your body gives you. Most often, diets also ask you to exercise on top of that while you're already in a calorie deficit. In addition to that, you are asked to push to the point of exhaustion. You’re also asked to disassociate from yourself in the sense that it's asking you to judge yourself and not good enough as you are, making you feel broken and increasing that rupture in the attachment with yourself. It’s saying there's something bad and wrong about you and that your value and worth are tied to your appearance rather than saying there's something bad or wrong about this message. Disassociating from yourself creates self-hatred, self-loathing, and shame.
   
7. Identification. To what degree have followers identified themselves with an element of the superconscious mind and detach from the identification with their ego and self? We kind of become this herd of sheep that are mindlessly following. You have to count the calories and do the list of foods they're saying to do. Have you heard of Food Addicts Anonymous or Bright Line Eating? I had a client who did this style of dieting before working with me. They literally had to eat precisely six ounces of raw vegetables and six ounces of cooked vegetables. Regardless of how hungry they were or how sick they were, they had to follow these things to the letter, ask their sponsor, send pictures of themselves to their sponsor. The sponsor would tell them whether they were eating the right amount of food or needed to cut back on protein or add more carbs. They had to call their sponsor every day and report what they ate. That's a big kind of groupthink rather than hearing and honoring yourself and what your body tells you.
   
8. Isolation. To what degree does a group cut followers from relating to family and friends outside of the group and limit contact with society outside of the group? This plays out a little differently…the majority of people are brought into this cult. If you are dieting, you're considered part of the group. That said, if you reject dieting, if you don't value thinness, you are ostracized and kind of isolated and not accepted. Unfortunately, when we're not accepted, it's like being banished. If you are not loved and accepted and welcomed into the group, that's a survival threat. We need other people to survive. People don't live as long if they don't have that social connection and support, not to mention the quality of life. If you choose to reject that culture, you will be isolated in some ways. I've had to work really hard to find a community and people who aren't caught up in that mindset (but it's possible and worth it!).
   
9. Cognitive restructuring. To what degree does indoctrination from a group change follower's beliefs about themselves and their relationship with other people, their moral values, and their cosmological view of the world? Diet culture does create cognitive restructuring. Shilo George was on the podcast, Do no Harm and talked about this as an invasive species; this messaging of your value and worth being tied to your appearance, thin is better, and there's something wrong with you if you eat a certain amount of food or look a certain way. Even if you use food to soothe, that's normal and doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. But we're given all of these messages, and it's completely pervasive. Diet culture changes the wiring in your brain to tell you that your value and your worth are tied to how you look and that you are not enough as you are. It also increases shame. It does change your belief about yourself and influences your relationships with other people.
   
10. Motivation. To what degree do followers' goals and dreams shift from a personal focus to a spiritual focus? Diet culture causes people to postpone personal goals. I've worked with many people who spent about 80% of their time thinking about food and body before working with me (now that they are healing, it's down to about 20%, yay!). They shared that most of their mental and emotional energy went towards controlling and managing their body and thinking about what they should and shouldn't eat. If you are spending that much of your mental and emotional energy on food and your body, there's no way that it isn't interrupting your personal goals and aspirations. Diet culture shifts your motivation to focus on changing your body, trying to contort/fight against it, and controlling and managing yourself instead of loving and accepting yourself and doing the things you want to do in life. 

When I first had this shift and healed, I had all of this peace and ease, and I didn't even know what to do with myself. I started creating playlists. I dove into learning how to become an Intuitive Eating Certified Professional. I ultimately created this business, and I'm now writing a book. I have had a lot more energy for my love life, adventures, sex, and pleasure in my life. I take time for fun and have so much more joy in my life. There are so many things I missed out on. Now I travel, cautiously, of course, during the pandemic, but it has freed me up to do so much in my life, and I am much more fulfilled. 

Email me if you have questions or if you need support at [email protected]. If you're spending a lot of your mental and emotional energy on this, feel like you're stuck in the cult of diet culture, and you want to break free, I can help.