Dear Diet Culture Letter: Same Ole' New Year Nonsense

Dear Diet Culture,

It’s me, Sunday. It’s officially the New Year of 2021 and I already know what you are about to do, that is if you haven’t already started. I know that you are going to try your best to benefit off of the body shame that people are feeling this year, just like in all other years past.

I know that you are going to try to capitalize off of people’s fears with COVID and any weight gain that folks have experienced. I know that you are going to really double down on trying to convince people that you are “body positive” and “not a diet” (hello Noom), but I can see right through you. You are SO predictable! It’s literally the same thing every year. Every. Dang. Year.

Each year you seek to offer the promise of change by summoning your minions to sell products, fasts, “cleanses”, workout programs, and diets, all of which are fueled by a fear of fat. You tell people that you have the secret that will offer them the one thing that they are looking for in life and in the new year: more love, confidence, happiness, success, energy, community, etc. And after a year like 2020, I can see why what you offer could be so enticing. People are particularly vulnerable now, which for you means more money.

But here’s the thing that I want people to know about you this year and beyond: The things that you promise do not come true. No matter how you keep rebranding yourself and how often you claim that your programs are “sustainable,” you are not and neither is weight loss for the majority of the population. You cause harm in so many ways and thrust many into years of disordered eating, eating disorders and weight cycling which we know have significant physical and mental adverse heath impacts.

This year my wish is that people will continue to reject you and see the sneaky ways that you show up throughout the year, and especially in January. My hope is that they will choose pleasure over guilt, no food rules over more food rules, connection over isolation, body trust over body hate, intuitive eating over diets, taking up space over shrinking, and that they will stop spending their hard earned money on you because you don’t deserve it.

And you never have.

Sincerely,

Sunday, aka your most passionate anti-diet Dietitian Katherine who wants you to know that diet culture loves this time of year and will work really hard to make you think that you are something that is broken and needs to be fixed and that it has the solution. After all, that’s what a multi-billion dollar industry has the power do.