Episode 03: Diet Culture is the Real Enemy, Not Carbs

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Participant #1:

Hi. Welcome back, guys. I'm Emily. Hi, guys. I'm Hannah. Welcome back. And on this episode, we'll be discussing diet culture. What exactly? It is some side effects of it and what you might see in today's society that are actually symptoms of this that you may not have realized before. Yes, this is going to be a good one. You've probably heard the phrase like diet culture thrown around, seen on Instagram from your favorite dietitian influencers or whoever, but you may not quite know exactly what it means or what it does or how it is involved in your life, and that's what we're going to go over today and kind of break that down. Talk about how to get away from it and all that good stuff. Yeah, it's super exciting. Yeah, this is a good one. I'm excited about this. Yeah. So I found a really great quote from the Eating Disorder and registered Dietitian Professional website where it defines die culture as a belief system that focuses on hand values, weight shapes and sizes over well being of an individual. And this kind of can go along with reassuring people that are on the thinner side that they don't need to take care of themselves because it really emphasizes that how you look defines your health status. And Additionally, it kind of utilizes the term health as a synonym with the term weight, so that's something really problematic that you may have experienced in your time. You've probably heard it at some point. I hear this so often that people compare their weight to how healthy they are, which is not good. Yeah. Not bad at all. I know I definitely have that's something I have struggled with, and it's not true. Your weight and your health are not synonymous. They definitely don't mean the same or relate to each other. They do relate a little bit, and we'll get to that later. But there's definitely not as big of a correlation as people make their out to be. Yeah. And people seem to tend to almost emphasize that weight is the only defining factor of your health, which is just not true at all, because it can vary so much depending on your height, what you ate that day, what you drank that day, what time you're weighing yourself, your body composition, your genetics, your stress levels. All these different factors contribute into weight. And it's not really the best identifier, I'd say, of how healthy you are. Yeah, exactly. It's so easy to manipulate it like one little thing can have it go up or down. And so using that as a way to measure how successful you're being with reaching your goals. That's just not a great idea, because it'll only set you up for feeling kind of bummed out when it's not going the way you want it to. We can talk about maybe some ways that you might see diet culture or how you might have experienced. I culture. I know one. I think probably the most common three, I'd say, are this entire perception of an almost group mentality of how losing weight is something all these people. Aspire for oftentimes, it's with New Year resolutions or the main reasons people start diets or even really, the entire premise behind dieting is to lose weight, which is not good, another popular one that will be coming up soon because we're recording this in February. And I guess with Kobe, there isn't spring breaks. There aren't spring breaks this year, but the entire premise behind a summer body and going on a diet to achieve your summer body so you can look good in your swimsuit, even though you don't need any type of body shape to wear a swimsuit. All you need is a body. That's all you need to go outside. I like what I heard once. That was a quote someone said that said, Your clothes are made to fit you. You're not made to fit into your clothes. I like that. I have also seen, like that picture of all the different, like, all the Jeez size 14, but they're all, like, different size. Have you seen that one? Oh, my gosh. Yes. That's a constant struggle. Honestly, with, like, yeah, I don't know about men's sizes that much because I don't really shop in that, although they have comfy sweatpants. I'll give them that. That's true. But my Pant sizes are a wide variety, and that was something I struggled with. I think because I always was like, I am this size, and I refuse to go out of that range, even though it varies so much between different stores and style of clothing. And it's something that I feel like a lot of people fix it on just that number, and they think that they have to stick to it. And if they're going out of it, something's wrong and they're no longer healthy. That just isn't the case, especially with, like, clothing manufacturers. Right. And, like, say, your friend's shoes has a seven. But your shoe size is the size ten. Like, are you going to try to reduce the size of your feet? No, that's just silly. You just wear the size ten that you're supposed to wear. Yeah, it should be the same for your clothes if you wear a size 14 in pants, that's fine. There's no need to try to shrink your body to get back into those size twelve you used to have or whatever it might be. That's just an example. But again, your clothes are made to fit you. You're not going to fit your clothes exactly something else that I've seen a lot of. And it's kind of a reoccurring theme with all these fad diets that come out is eliminating or restricting entire food groups, which I'm sure a lot of people have experience where they decide that they'll cut out this entire, like, I'm going to cut out carbohydrates, and it's going to make me such a healthier person, and I'll lose weight from it when just that is not realistic in the long term. And also no one's going to be happy cutting out carbs. Like, no, exactly. There's a way to have all these different foods in your diet, and you can still live a healthy and happy lifestyle, because that is just as important that you are happy with yourself and what you eat. Exactly. And how long is that truly going to last? If you cut out an entire food group or whatever it might be like, so you're giving up sugar or whatever. That's fine. Go ahead and do that. But how long is that really going to last for? Also. So whatever goal you're reaching for by doing that, once you reach it and then you reintroduce that food group or whatever it was that you took away, that goal probably won't still be applicable. You might not be at the place you were that you had gotten to. Yes, this actually reminds me. I'm sure you remember quite well when I decided in undergrad, I decided that I limit my dessert intake and I became a menace to be around because I just craved it more. And it was not healthy at all. And I was like, I'm going to have dessert once a week, but there was no reason not to. There was no reason for me to restrict that out of my diet. And I don't really know why I was doing that at that point. It was probably like effects of society and thinking I had to change my body. Studying Dietetics, too. Like we were studying to be dietitians. We thought we had to only eat dietitian approved foods, whatever that means. So I'm sure that was a big part of it, too. Yeah, definitely. I thought you were going to say

Participant #1:

yes. I'll explain that too, because I feel like I don't want to find any vegans. I really like the ethics behind it. And you're great for doing that. And kudos to you. But I think it was one of those weird phases where I thought that in order for me to be healthier, I needed to be a vegan. And I remember I think it wasn't even, like, 5 hours later, the next meal we ate together at one of our favorite dining Quartz had these cinnamon rolls. And one of the best parts of the cinnamon rolls was the frosting or the cream cheese. And that's not vegan. And I was like, Screw it. I'm not doing this anymore, and I changed or labeled my diet for that five hour span for absolutely. There was no good reason for me to do that other than my motivation was I'm going to be healthier. There are plenty of good reasons to be vegan, but that was not one that obviously I could have maintained long term.

Participant #1:

Yeah. Seriously. On a serious note, I know it was hilarious that day because we're like, okay, you're vegan for 5 seconds. That brings up a really good point, though, because if your goals are not realistic and if they're not approachable or again realistic for your lifestyle, what's the likelihood that is actually going to last long term? So you got to really consider that when trying to make changes. Yeah, especially with my internal motivation behind that. Maybe if I decided to be a vegan from more like of an ethical standpoint with reducing my animal product consumption in front of a sustainability standpoint for the environment, that would make more sense. But I don't know what I was thinking. Learn from me if you're going to be vegan, do it for the right reasons, not what I did. It didn't even last that long. That was too funny. Well, I think that also brings us to another kind of symptom of diet culture or realizing that something is diet culture, which is a huge one. This is also a big part of my diet culture immersion past. And that is labeling foods as good and bad. I hear this every single day. People say, oh, I ate so many bad foods yesterday. I'm only going to eat good tomorrow. Food does not have a moral value. Food cannot be good, nor bad food is food. And of course, you can't compare cookies to broccoli. They're totally different. They have different benefits and things like that. But neither one of those is better than the other. Yeah, exactly something I always like to say when I always get critiqued for eating any type of sweet of some sort is someone will be like, Well, that's not a good food. What health benefit is that? Why are you eating that? And I always tell them it's good for my soul. I really like that answer because it makes me happy. I like enjoying that food. I like eating it. I like the flavor and the texture, and that's perfectly fine if you want to eat foods for that reasoning, it's not that it's a bad food. I'm like, oh, no. I'm going to kick myself for this later. Every food has a benefit. You just have to kind of widen your scope and think about you don't even really have to think about the benefits if you want to. Just this food makes me happy and that's it. Plus, if you are labeling foods as good or bad, it does have that guilt factor that you might feel shame when you eat it. And then you might try to overcompensate with, like, exercise or restricting yourself in the future because you messed up. Even though you did it. You just enjoy the food that you like, and that's okay. Yeah. Exactly. And to that food is more than just fuel it's more than just giving your body energy and the nutrients it needs. While that's really important, and that's a huge part of what we do as dietitians food is also helpful for coping with emotions here and there. It's helpful or it's used in celebrations. It is more than just getting your body from point A to point B. And again, that's a huge part of it. And that's not to say that you shouldn't have plenty of fruits and veggies and that kind of stuff. But soul food is definitely also very important. So don't be afraid to include those foods as well. Exactly. It's really important not to feel guilty when you're making decisions about what types of food you're eating, and then this can lead to compensating with exercise. I didn't mention it before, but I just really wanted to emphasize that you don't have to earn your food with other means of getting it. I've had so many conversations where people will eat like, it's always brunch. I don't know why I'm thinking of brunch, so people are like, I got to go walk off my brunch from this morning when you don't have to make a compromise with yourself because you might have eaten a bit more than you normally do.

Participant #1:

Yeah. And like, even if you actually did eat more calories than what your body actually needs, that's fine. Your body knows what to do with those. It's not going to just automatically store as fat on your body or anything. Like your body is pretty darn smart. It knows what to do with the extra food that you ate. It's going to be okay. The long term effects are another story. Of course, if you're doing that every single day. But I highly doubt you're eating a giant single or giant brunch every day. So there are again, bigger battles to fight than that kind of stuff. Yeah. And kind of going along with this, too. Also another thing we've seen with diaculture is I've seen so many people preach, maybe I don't know the best way to put this, but maybe like ignoring your internal cues. And this is when you're hungry. And I've seen so many times people say, Just drink water. You're not actually hungry. You're thirsty. When your body is sending you these signals, it's okay to listen to them. And in a lot of cases, we recommend you listen to your body because it does know what's going on and what your body needs at the time. This also can go into figuring out when you actually feel full. This, I know is a bit trickier for me because I had grown up with all these societal opinions on how I should feel when I'm eating and what I should be eating. And it actually did take a bit of time for me. I don't know about you, but actually being able to gauge when I was full was a really cool experience. Now it seems like very self explanatory. But when you're eating, are you stopping when you're eating because you feel like you have to stop eating or are you stopping because you might have over fed yourself and eat too quickly? So you weren't able to gauge these feelings of illness. And that was just something really interesting. I experienced where it took me, honestly, a couple of years to really unlearn what diet culture had taught me and be able to gauge when I was full. Yeah, I was going to actually say that it is normal for it to take a while to regain that trust with your body, because depending how long you have those feelings kind of shoved down deep, it can be hard to bring those back to the surface. So if it takes days, months, years to be able to feel your hunger fullness satisfaction again, that's normal. And that's okay. And if while you're working through that, you do overeat at times and you feel uncomfortably full sometimes or sometimes go past that feeling of hunger a little bit too far, that's just part of the learning process. So there's no right or wrong way to get there. And it's okay if it does take a little bit more time than you might hope or expect. And also, I know that's not the fast quick, the fast fix a lot of people want because they want results in, like a week or a month. But if you think about how many years you've spent fixating on what your body looks like, what you should be eating, what is considered healthy, it's going to take a bit of time to unlearn these behaviors. It's perfectly fine, like 16 years of being surrounded by diet culture in society's, unrealistic expectations will take time to learn. And that's okay if we're not able to mute this in editing, my dog is going berserk. But I second everything has been saying so yes, this all kind of comes together into one big idea. But another symptom of diet culture, if you will, is I definitely did this before is avoiding social situations because of the foods that serve there not going out with your friends on the weekend. Let's go back to the brunch example, like not going to brunch with your girlfriends on Sunday because you have to meet your macros that day. That is a pretty big sign that you are viewing food the wrong way and that's something probably needs to kind of be tweaked a little bit. The social situations are so much fun to go to, and also sometimes the food is a fun part of it. I know Super Bowl parties are really fun, not just the food, but there's also really great food. There, like celebrations like weddings, stuff like that feeling out of control, especially because you don't know what's going to be offered. There is really stressful and something we don't want you to experience that you feel so out of control because you can't choose what you're putting in your body and eating that day. That is probably to the point where maybe reflecting on what your relationship with food actually looks like and how much it is controlling you and not allowing you to live your best life. Yeah, it's true. It is good to ask yourself why you feel that way. I know it sounds maybe silly or cliche, but it's true oftentimes we have just go through the motions and we don't really think about, oh, is that really, like, a normal thing for me to be feeling that way that I shouldn't be going to a sweating or whatever and kind of figuring out maybe what really is going on there? Okay. I really like this next one. I've been guilty of this one, too. I've been guilty of all these. Oh, my goodness. But this next one we're going to talk about is focusing on validations through compliments about appearance. So a girlfriend says, oh, you've lost weight. You look great, and then you kind of like, sit on that for the next week and feel really good about it. That probably is showing that your weight means a lot to you and your health is really correlated to your weight, which we already have said in the beginning, isn't always the case. But even from the other point, too, as someone who was saying that to a friend that you've noticed has lost weight, they're probably going to kind of the same thing. That weight and health mean the same thing. And you don't know what. That person probably lost the weight if they did it intentionally, if they were really trying to lose weight in a healthy way, or if they were going through an eating disorder, if they lost a family member and they've been depressed and not able to eat, you never know what someone is going through. And so commenting on their outward appearances is something you should kind of steer clear of. Yeah. There have been a lot of really great conversations that I've seen a lot of dietitians bring up now talking about ways to compliment people that's not on their way. Like, I love the energy in the room. When you come in, you make me smile so much. Your happiness is so contagious. There's so many ways to compliment someone that's not on their way, which kind of also when you complement someone on your way, that's giving in to die culture. And basically, like you said, you're emphasizing that your worth and my perception that's basically emphasizing that your perception of someone and your perception of their weight or their health is synonymous with their weight, which is not always not true at all. And I'm hoping that society slowly moves away from this because I've also experienced it where someone's commented on fluctuations in my weight and it has affected my mood so much. And you don't realize it might come off as a compliment, but to that person, they might start fixating on their weight, and they can basically lead someone to obsess over their weight and their physical experience and basically look for validation, like we said, through their appearance, which is not always good. There are so many things you can complement. Someone on weight just isn't really appropriate.

Participant #1:

Yeah. And like, I was kind of saying a little bit more about this if they are suffering from an eating disorder, you're really feeding into that by telling them, oh, you lost weight. You look great. Their brain is in a place where they're going to take what you just said and, like, fix it on that and it's going to become even more obsessive than it probably already is. So again, you never know what someone is going through. So sum it all up. Just don't ever come out on someone's weight. Yeah. Not a good idea. I was just going to say our last little bullet point we have that we want to discuss was another side effect of dad culture that we've seen that I think we might see the most out of all these, although we've seen a lot of these a lot, many of these quite often.

Participant #1:

But basically, if you talk about your diet or your weight or your exercise constantly, that's directly correlated die culture that they're really making, you think that this is what you should be focusing on your life. You should be talking about this new diet you're trying out and talking about your weight and talking about how much you exercise and such. But I wouldn't say there's no need, but it's not really something that I feel like it's going to make your life any better when you do emphasize these different components in your life, like, good for you that you're exercising, however many minutes per day or whatnot, and that you're trying out a new diet. But it's that over fixation on these that can really be damaging to your health, where it becomes almost an obsession. Yeah. And this can be especially challenging, especially, but also challenging in our field. We're talking about it day in and day out. We talk about, quote, unquote healthy eating exercise, all of that kind of stuff with other people. So I'm very thankful that this conversation against diet culture has been happening because I think if I had not been introduced to this conversation this early in my career, I may have become the dietitian who was more focused on someone's weight and how often they're exercising and the way they look, which, as we already have said multiple times, that's not the best way to approach someone's health. And so any other fellow dietitians listening or Rd to be listening. I do recommend kind of trying to dig a little bit deeper with people you're working with, because there is a lot more to it than how often they're working out, exactly how many servings of vegetables they had that day or whatever it might be. I don't really know where I was going with this, but it can definitely be a big challenge for our field, especially exactly. And also with all these different these points we brought up, we hope that we might open your eyes to experiences that you have in your everyday life that you didn't realize could be problematic, but they actually can be in the long run for your physical health, and not only that, but also your mental health. Really digital has been very damaging and kind of seeped its way into society to the point where it affects nearly everyone I know in some way or another, where they've either experienced one of these things. They've heard one of these things. It's something we're trying to combat and fight against because we care about your health in general, and these behaviors aren't appropriate. Yeah. Hopefully if enough of us can join the conversation and join the movement, hopefully kind of as a whole we can steer away from this diet culture in general, and, of course, is like the end goal. So we kind of wanted to get a little personal and talk about our own experiences with diet culture because like we said a million times, both of us have kind of started out being fully immersed into it, and thankfully, we have grown and gotten our way out. Now we want to help you do the same. But I guess I will start with a few of my examples of what I've experienced in the past and maybe like what I did about it, too. So we mentioned this before in our last podcast episode, but I used to do the whole thing where if you think you eat like someone work out the way they work out, follow their exact meal plan exercise regimen, they all look just like them. Obviously, that's not the case. You can eat the exact same as whatever celebrity you're trying to look like, and it will just never happen because you have different genetics and your day to day life is different. You have different resources and access to food and all that kind of stuff. So that one I have thankfully grown away from. I now focus on what my body is capable of and eating, what I enjoy eating and not just what this celebrity or Instagram influencer whatever is doing instead. So this next one I like more recently moved away from. Thankfully, I had a whole stockpile in my closet of clothes that I don't fit in anymore. Obviously, my body has changed as I've gotten older. I'm no longer a high school soccer player running 6 miles a day for my warm up. That's just not what I do anymore. And that's okay. I am still a healthy version of myself. It's just in a different way. But anyway, I had all these different clothes that I didn't fit into anywhere from body is totally different. And I just kept telling myself, eventually I will get back to that weight in that body and I will be able to put them again. So I'm not going to throw them away or give them away because eventually I'll need them. And then, like we already said in this episode, I finally realized that my clothes were made to fit me, not the other way around. So got rid of those bad boys, and I purchased clothes that actually comfortably fit me. And it's kind of life changing. You just feel more confident when your clothes fit you, even if they are a bigger size. It's just life changing. If you are holding on to close right now that you think you're going to eventually fit into, even if you will someday. Now isn't the time that you do. And that's okay. So get rid of those babies if you have them. I definitely agree with that bullet point. I think honestly, I think during my internship was when I actually accepted this back to where I have had clothing that I have never worn before. And Luckily, I didn't spend a ton of money on it. But I definitely had the mindset that I was like, oh, once I get in shape and once I lose this amount of weight, I will look so good in this. And I was like, why I would literally look at the clothing and feel bad about myself because I still don't feel confident wearing this. And I don't feel comfortable wearing this because I'm not this body size. And over I said the past two years, I finally got away from that, and I was like, It's okay if I don't fit into these clothes or wear clothes that I aspire to wear. When I was like, the weight in high school, when I was an adolescent, I was like, a child. I'm not going to be the same way I was in high school. And that's just not realistic. And I developed a really negative relationship with a lot of my clothes where it just kind of reminded me that I am not this unrealistic body size that I aspire for, and I got rid of them, and it felt really good because now they're no longer in there, and I wear clothes that fit me well, and I feel confident in yeah,

Participant #1:

okay. I have a couple more experiences that I have personally had. I talk about a lot, like, on my Instagram and things as well. But I used to be super into my fitness pal kind of my macros, all of that good stuff. And there's a time and place for that. I work with people every single day that do that in a healthy, their own kind of way. But the way I was doing it was off of the wrong reasons. It was all to look a certain way, lose weight, whatever. And the biggest problem that I came across with it was that I wasn't eating anywhere close to enough. I actually logged in today into my fitness pal to see what I had been eating back then. I was shooting for, like, 1500 calories and let me just say this for, like, oh, God, whatever. I in College was walking all over campus. I worked multiple jobs. I worked out five days a week. I took like, 30,000 steps a day, and I was a student. I was learning. I was doing all kinds of stuff all day long, and so that was nowhere near enough food for me. And I couldn't quite understand why I was always hungry and tired and grumpy and why every single weekend I would just, like, go crazy and eat insane amount of food. And it was all because I was under feeding myself every single day of the week just consistently and constantly. It took me a long time to realize that I was not eating anywhere near enough food, my fitness pal does not know what you need. So if it tells you that you're eating a certain amount and you feel like it's not enough, it probably isn't.

Participant #1:

And that goes into my last point, which is I had a big all or nothing approach to just health in general and nutrition, health, fitness, all of those. They're not black and white. There's no such thing as, again, good foods, bad foods, doing it right or wrong. It just doesn't work that way. It's all about balance and kind of meeting yourself in the middle and making small, sustainable goals. One thing that I've heard before that I like to use as an example of this is if you forget to brush your teeth one morning, do you just, like, not brush ever again? Like, you just give up and never do it again? Probably not. You likely just wait until the afternoon to do it right away. Even if you are at home, you just get back on your routine and brushing and you just get back to normal, so it shouldn't really be any different with your health nutrition habits. Any of that? I don't want to say mess up because you can't mess up there's not doing anything wrong. But if you kind of do something you wouldn't normally do, there's no need to kind of just fall off the bandwagon and stop working. Better, working to better yourself altogether. It's just all about kind of getting back to what you were doing before. I really like how you put that last one. I like the toothbrush example a lot. I know I won't just stop brushing my teeth because I forgot one time. Right? That's a good example. Can you imagine? Oh, my gosh, no. All right. So I'll kind of go into my personal experiences with dye culture. I mentioned a couple of them before when we were talking about the biggest symptoms we've seen of diet culture, but these are some additional ones that I've experienced in our previous episode. We really came after Pinterest. Nothing personal against Pinterest love Pinterest. But I experienced a lot of negative experiences with Pinterest around solely diets and workouts. A lot of things with diets. I experience. I don't even know what I would look up, but a lot of the times I would see descriptions or lists of foods that I was allowed to eat for whatever reason, I don't even remember why the other foods were not okay, but for whatever reason, I was not allowed to eat these other foods, and I think it was mostly related to weight loss. I'd say in the other foods, either way, too high in calories, the sugar content was too high. I remembering fruit specifically. I think there was one where it knocked off a bunch of fruits. And I really liked fruit. And I was so sad because I thought I couldn't eat fruit anymore because literally something I saw is a high schooler. And I was like, oh, no, not cantaloupe.

Participant #1:

But another thing going off of Pinterest was I used to participate in workouts that would target certain areas of your body, and I know this still happens. It's not just on Pinterest. I've seen it on Instagram and other social media platforms where people will post workouts that will get rid of that fat under your arm. That's such a popular one or like your love handles or make your thighs smaller. They seem to be the main culprits, and that's not really how exercise works, but I became so fixated on trying to get rid of my ad post tissue in different areas of my body. When looking back, I looked fine. I don't know what was going on in my head, but I would look in the mirror and see. I didn't like how my body looked, and I tried to get rid of these different areas. Another point I wanted to bring up was I became very obsessive about reading nutrition labels, and I became just the idea of a serving size. I felt like I couldn't go over that. I would look at the carbohydrates and fat content and honestly looking back at it. Now, I don't think I really knew what I was looking for or not, but I just became very fixated whenever I could. I wouldn't read nutrition labels and looked at the serving size and the calories and basically determine how much I could eat based off of those. Back then, I was exercising pretty consistently as a high schooler in the various sports I participated in. I was doing clubs. I was awake for so many hours a day. High school. I don't know how people do high school. I look back and I was like 8 hours of school. Oh, my gosh. College was hard enough with those 730 classes, but I really just became so fixated on nutrition labels, and now I read them more for fun because I'm interested in what they say on them or what claims they have. But it's not going to dictate how much I eat or how much I'm going to enjoy because I forgot what it was. Maybe it's Oreos. I forgot what the serving size was, but it was at the time like a ridiculously low amount. I think it's two. Yeah. Okay. I was thinking I never eat just two Oreos always more than that. But that's something I've obviously moved on for. I guess I didn't really talk about with the Pinterest stuff, what I have done now to change that behavior. But now I think I don't go on Pinterest for diet advice or workouts. I either follow personal trainer workouts that I find online because there's so many. There's so many online that there are so many resources at the tips of our fingers and the diet advice just I don't look at that because I know they aren't really credible, and I don't like how they demonize food like cantaloupe. What's with the cantaloupe? That's just silly food to avoid. And I think one of the last oh yeah. This is probably the biggest one I experienced. I'd say probably most often through undergrad was I did an unhealthy amount of scrolling through social media where I see before and after pictures of people losing weight, and that just really in my head validated the thought that if you lose weight, you're healthier, and that's not always the case when people lose weight, they could be losing muscle mass and not fat like people want. And it just really, I guess defined my inner worth in my head that I needed to lose weight to be more worthy. I don't know what I was worthy of, but it just became very obsessive where I would also compare myself to them. That was terrible. Everyone's bodies are different. You don't know. There are so many different contributing factors that differ from person to person. And if you are following someone who posts all the time and you feel bad about your body because of it, unfollow them because they aren't doing any good for your life. They might not be intentionally trying to be trying to motivate you, but sometimes that's not always what people need to see.

Participant #1:

Exactly. So kind of going into the next segment of we've been talking about diet culture, what it is, what it might look like in a society, how we've been affected by it. But like, who benefits from this? This is really kind of the bigger question of why this is even happening and why this has been continuing to happen for decades. I don't know if it's centuries. I don't know what they were doing back in, like, the 1800s. Well, they have, like, courses and stuff back then. People smaller diet culture. Oh, my gosh. It's been around for centuries. Guys, we need to put a stop to this now. It's the 21st century. Let's do this thing. Yeah, but we will not do benefit from this is the diet industry. And in 2020, the diet industry actually earns $71 billion from this. And this can be so you might be like, what is the diet industry? What are they doing that has earned this much money. This can look very differently depending on what level it's at. But this can look like weight management programs, supplement sales, health clubs, all those programs and people that push New Year's resolution changes and come by my program for a new year and for even a healthier you, there is so much I go into these little levels, but those are probably the biggest ones. I'd say. Yeah, but I know we are talking about supplements. I think one of the most recent ones I saw were Apple cider vinegar, gummies for fat loss and weight management. That was, I think, the most recent one I saw. Yes. And it's things like that. I looked into it. And the studies that they showed that supported this didn't even really use the actual supplements. They used different types and variations of Apple cider vinegar, and not even all the times the findings were significant, or the sample groups and sizes were realistic and representative of all these different types of people. But that was the most recent one I saw where if you take this gum, it'll help you lose fat and manage your weight. Yeah. And I'm looking into it, too, actually, because it is such a big, hot thing right now. And yeah, a lot of the studies just either aren't conclusive or a lot of them are even done in humans. There really isn't a lot of human studies. They do a lot of, like, rap studies on this kind of stuff. And the other thing I really wanted to point out on that, too. A lot of it is long term. It's kind of a newer fad or whatever you want to call it. And so we don't know the long term effects of taking those gummies or drinking it straight or whatever you do if you are into the whole Apple cider vinegar thing. But yes, we don't know the long term effects of it either. And this also just plays into, I think something this type of supplement or supplements with these objectives, it plays into the fact I don't know how much we've just discussed. Honestly, that I don't think we really talked about it at all, but they're benefiting from your insecurities, and they're telling you there's something wrong with you or you need to lose fat, so they don't see that outright. That would be really rude. But basically, you see these claims and you're like, Wait, do I need to change my body? And oftentimes you don't or the supplement actually isn't going to really do anything for you. It's just kind of a money driver for them. Yeah, that's exactly right. A lot of these things make these giant claims. And I guess the biggest takeaway is, but it seems too good to be true. It probably is that applies to the Apple cider vinegar gummies. Any kind of program that says lose £10 in three days or whatever. If it seems to be true or pretty unrealistic, it most likely is. Yeah. And I don't think we want to go into it now, necessarily. But the FDA does not regulate supplements as much as we would like. And we can talk about third party testing and what that looks like. But oftentimes a lot of these supplements I've seen that are being pushed online, aren't third party tested. So we don't actually know if what is labeled in their nutrition facts label in terms of ingredients and quantities, if it's actually accurate, which is scary. Supplements kind of scare me. Honestly. Same thing I'm like, Are you real? What's in? Yeah, exactly. Okay. So we have talked so so much about what culture is, why it's wrong, why we want to get away from it. But we now want to talk about how to actually do that, how to make changes, join the conversation and kind of get away from that culture as a whole. We'll kind of both just chime in here. But the first one, I think that is really important, is to accept that our health is a multifaceted concept. It's not just lose weight, be healthy, period. There's so much more to that than that. Our health includes just a wide variety of things. And so if you can just accept that even at a heavier weight, you can still be healthy. I think that would be a great place to start to kind of get away from the diet culture mindset. I think also going off of that is when we work with patients or clients, we utilize weight as a factor to see if maybe they're at risk or malnutrition, if they have fluid accumulation, if there's a sudden increase in their weight. But we also look at their past medical history. We look at how they've been eating. We look at lab values. We look at other notes from other practitioners that might be reporting on if there's anything mental health or emotional health going on in their life. And there's a lot that goes into the term health and basically health overall that it doesn't just come down to one number on your scale that may seem to haunt you or what you believe defines your health or how healthy you are. Yeah, thankfully, it's not just all coming down to that one number. So when you are trying to improve your health, whatever that looks like for you, because again, it can be so many different things. It can be really helpful to this earlier kind of get away from the all or nothing mindset, which is a huge part of diet culture health is this. And it's only this getting away from that and kind of knowing that it will look different for you is really important. And so starting slow and kind of changing one habit at a time instead of just on Monday, I'm going to cut out sugar forever. I'm going to be healthy then that's never going to work. It's not going to last long term. I said that earlier. And so again, starting slow is really important. And with that celebrating small victories say you have a goal of like going to bed half an hour earlier every single day this week. That's awesome. It may not be the full 8 hours you're shooting for, but if it gets you six or seven instead of five or whatever, it might be, that's a really big thing to celebrate, because for you, that is a step in the right direction, and it's a big improvement. So it doesn't need to be a giant change. Baby steps will get you to the place you want to be. Exactly. I like everything you said. There another way that you can challenge yourself is oftentimes you hear people saying they're cutting out things in their life or their diet, and you can really kind of reverse a narrative and change as to what am I going to add into my life? More, for instance, with sleeping more, you might in turn like a result of wanting to sleep more or go to bed earlier is you naturally reduce your caffeine intake. Another thing is consuming more fruits or vegetables instead of cutting out dessert or sweets, but you emphasize more. I'm going to add a vegetable to my breakfast today. I'm going to add some fruit into a smoothie or some extra spinach or something like that. It's more so changing your mindset that you're adding things into your diet rather than taking them out and restricting them to where you will fixate on that. And we'll eventually crave it more and want to binge with whatever it is you're taking out. And then the last one going off of that is drinking more water. This can be I'm going to drink a full glass of water as soon as I wake up or you set many timestamps throughout the day where I want to drink X amount of water by this time and more. So focusing on these additives to your body or your I don't want to say additives to your body because people might be like, oh, no, but it's really just I say additives more to your lifestyle that you can focus on more throughout the day rather than restricting yourself. I kind of touched on this earlier, but cleaning up your social media feed, this is you can definitely chiming because I know we've had this discussion before, but unfollowing accounts that don't make you feel good about yourself or make you reflect on your own life and think that you have to change yourself because you aren't following the same exact habits that someone else is, or even if it's an account that demonizes different foods like, eat this and not that for whatever reason that it might be in the long run, these will not be healthy for your lifestyle and also your mindset. And also in the sense that social media has been growing so much over the past decade, and I think that it's just going to continue to grow. So it's another space that are you feeling comfortable and will this benefit you in the long run? Something really important to reflect on another way to move away from that culture is we said this earlier about how you shouldn't comment on someone's weight, and that kind of goes to this point of always asking yourself, would I say this to a friend before saying it to yourself? Would you ever go tell your best friend that she looks at today? Probably not. That would be just incredibly rude. And you probably wouldn't be friends for much longer. Don't do that. So if you think to yourself, okay. Yeah. I wouldn't say this to my friend. I probably shouldn't say it to myself either. That can be a step in the right direction and moving away from that culture. Yeah. You are your own biggest critic. Yeah. And the thoughts you have in your head will transfer over to your actions, which will transfer over to your life where it really starts with what are you thinking about yourself and reflecting on? Is this appropriate to say something to someone else? If not, it's probably not appropriate to say to yourself because you don't deserve that. You're an amazing person. You don't get to just criticize yourself in the mirror. You're not going to feel good about that, and you're better than that and tell your inner thoughts, too. I'm thinking bad words in my head.

Participant #1:

Yeah. Basically through you inner thoughts go away. You're not making my life any better. Yeah. Write them down and burn them in a five. Maybe that'll work. Yeah. And then wrap it up here. If you have a platform to speak out about this kind of stuff like Emily and I are trying to do do it. This is a growing movement. We're trying to really make this the next thing and kind of get rid of this altogether. So if you have a platform to talk about it, do so and use it. And if you don't, if you don't really want to speak about this, too much, support those that do, whether that's Emily and myself, of course. But there's all kinds of dietitians and others who are preaching the same thing we are. And so if you are able to, like, share, comment, anything that we're kind of trying to spread, that would be a really good way to join the conversation. Join the movement. All that definitely agree with all that. And I think the last one is finding a support system. You're not alone. A lot of people are going through this. We shared our personal experiences, and we luckily had the educational background to understand where a lot of these things were coming from. And that goes to show that even people who specialize in this still face these issues to this day. It's not like we're perfect, but there are so many people that are going through this. It's basically about finding your people. There are a lot of great support groups that online that a lot of dietitians will host or basically moderate. And it's a lot easier to do this when you're in a group and you have people that support you and genuinely want to see you be better in the sense that you're more comfortable with yourself and have a better relationship with food rather than thinking that you're all alone and you have to do this by yourself because you don't have to do it by yourself. There are people that support you. It's just a matter of figuring out who actually wants to see you succeed and who might feel like they're supporting you, but they actually don't. Yeah, exactly.

Participant #1:

Okay. I think that wraps up all of our thoughts and well, not all. I'm sure we have more that we will sums it up. We hope that this episode really helps you realize how much dye culture has infiltrated our everyday lives and that there is a way to combat it, and you don't have to continually practice these habits in your everyday life. It is possible to get out of the groove and basically fight those norms. But something we wanted to point out is there are some individuals, especially with, like, eating disorders, that they have a lot more going on. And this episode is not supposed to be a replacement for basically helping you combat what's going on inside your head and your poor relationship with food and eating disorder. There's so much more than that. Well, basically, we hope this is to a start. This is a start in the right direction and that we can have these conversations. And also, if you know someone that, you know, someone or you yourself are questioning if you might need more professional help. There are dietitians that specialize in eating disorders. There's the National Eating Disorder Association helpline. That's a really great resource, and we will support you. And we hope that you do reach out for help because that's kind of the first step to taking care of yourself. Obviously, people are at different levels and reaching out might be really difficult at this time, and that's okay. But it's something that when you're ready, we hope that you do reach out and utilize these resources that are maybe more qualified rather than our one episode talking about die culture and the problems that are associated with it. Yes. So we hope it's resonated with you and that you took a great deal from it. But like Emily said, this is not a substitute for professional help, which is out there. If you do feel like you would benefit from that, we will include in the description of the episode, some different phone numbers and links and things like that to help you get started on that professional journey of bettering your health. Exactly. But our fun bonus section of this episode and our controversial food opinions of the week is pineapple on pizza. People get pretty heated about this. Hannah, what are your thoughts? I'm interested for this one because I don't actually know your thoughts. I'm excited to see what you say about this, but personally, it used to be my favorite pizza. Hawaiian pizza used to be the one I would always growing up request my parents would get for us. How do they do that? I've kind of grown out of it. I still like it a lot. I would still eat it. It's not my go to anymore, but that would be the one I would always want to eat, and everyone in the household would like to eat it, but it wasn't anyone else's favorite. So my vote for that is heck, yes. Pineapple and pizza is delicious. Cool. I was going to say the same thing. It wasn't my favorite one growing up, but I think since I love fruit so much that having fruit on a pizza just I have no problem with that. I think my favorite is Hawaiian, normally with barbecue sauce and Ham. Is that the combination? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I always enjoyed that. I never really understood the I mean, your opinions are valid, but I never understood the hate it got because I guess people don't want fruit on pizza, but I think it's really good. I think it's a nice savory and sweet combination, and it's not my first choice. But if it's there, I'll definitely enjoy it. So I'm also a yes. Two. Yess. We agree. Again. I was just going to say about the sweet and savory. I think that's the biggest thing because Ross, my husband, he does not like on pizza that much because he's not a huge fan of, like, mixing sweet and savory, trying to think of, like, another example, something I really like that's, like, sweet and savory. I don't know. Have you ever had honey on pizza before? I have not. I haven't either. I've, like, heard it. Is that common, like, normal cheese pizza? I think so. Just like any pizza. I think it'd be good with, like, sausage because of the saltiness.

Participant #1:

But, anyway, I think that I think the sweet and salty aspect is kind of what throws everyone off. I agree. One day we'll find one question one day that we don't disagree on. We're too similar. I know. I also feel like we're not picky eaters. Neither of us. I think the ones that are like more. Not if you like it or not, the ones that are more like. I don't want to spoil anything but, like, as a hot bucket of sandwich stuff like that we might disagree on. Yeah. I feel like I'll get heated on that

Participant #1:

cool. Okay. Well, thank you guys so much for tuning into this third episode. We're having so much fun recording these. Stay tuned for episode four and we'll see you then. Yeah, of course. All right. Bye bye.