Dear Diet Culture Letter: Longing for Connection

Dear Diet Culture, 

It’s me, Sunday. 

It’s August of the year 2020 and collectively are going through a really hard time and you are making it worse. I have been talking for some time now about how you isolate us and make us feel like we are the only ones that are suffering, but phew you have really outdone yourself lately. So, let me inform you of a few noteworthy things. 

We are in a pandemic and even during this time you have scared people (and parents) into thinking that gaining weight is a terribly bad thing and food is something to be afraid of. You have encouraged jokes about people changing body size while diverting their attention away from their own suffering and the suffering of others. Not only this, you have encouraged national health campaigns to spread inaccurate information about people in larger bodies, which has been devastating.

But I know you well and I know this is your tactic. Distract, divert, and isolate.

Speaking of isolation, did I mention that we have been in quarantine and that physical time together has become increasingly hard if not impossible at times? And did I also mention that we are going through a necessary civil rights movement in which most are longing to connect with each other off of social media? Despite these big seismic shifts, you are making people feel shame about their food choices and their bodies. This only causes people to feel even more shame which only causes them to isolate even more.

Which I guess also makes us less powerful. I see your move here.

Diet Culture, healing for humans happens within communities. Yes, I am aware that it happens on an individual level too, but there is something profound that happens when people can heal with each other. Even our nervous systems know it (neuroscience calls this co-regulation which is where we regulate our nervous systems together, in relationship).

But what’s most curious about all of this is that you create the illusion of connection. You make people think that talking about their new diet, the food substitutes they are using, the new “lifestyle change” they are trying, or the ways they hate their body is a way to connect when in fact it only isolates people even more. It’s a false sense of connection predicated on hatred of self.

So, in times of such loneliness I will fight for connection, Diet Culture. I will continue to call you out on your sneaky ways and let others know that the connection you offer is not actually true connection.

Warmly,

Sunday, aka your most friendly, righteously indignant, anti-diet Dietitian Katherine who is fed up with Diet Culture isolating and disconnecting us