With the coming of the New Year, conversations and social media status updates are sprinkled with discussion of new diets and fitness intentions. People everywhere assert their annual New Year's resolutions of starting to watch what they're eating and making the gym their home away from home, but these resolutions rarely last, as busy schedules eliminate all extra time for dieting and gym-going. People begin denying food in order to keep up their resolution, and they start to feel guilty whenever they eat that one slice of cake or sneak a bite of a cookie. This mentality, however harmless it may seem, is toxic and is causing a lot of problems with Americans' relationship with food.
The 21st century has witnessed the rise in diet culture, or the increasingly high emphasis on diet and fitness in American culture. While people focusing on their health is a great thing, fad diets and short-lived fitness routines are the completely wrong way to go about it, and this mindset is backfiring by causing much more harm than good. The diet culture in America is creating an extremely unhealthy relationship with food and our bodies for millions of people across the country. The entire atmosphere of diets seems to be geared towards restricting and making food an enemy, when food should be looked at as a way to nourish our bodies and give us life. According to The Council on Size and Weight Discrimination, 75 percent of American women surveyed endorse unhealthy thoughts, feelings or behaviors related to food or their bodies. This is unacceptable, and it in no way promotes health and wellness.
Fitness machines everywhere automatically show the user how many calories they are burning, instead of how their increasing heart rate is benefiting their body. People dread going to the gym, but they keep going because they just have to have that beach bod. They work towards a goal weight, or a goal body, but they scoff at the idea of continuing their fitness routine for the rest of their lives; their fitness routine is aiming for a goal weight instead of aiming for increased wellness and a prolonged life span. Our culture has prioritized outer beauty and appearance instead of inner health and wellness. Our culture has eliminated the fact that healthy looks different for each individual body type. Our culture has made it to where if you don't look a certain way, you should keep denying your body nutrition and working out incessantly until you look socially acceptable, no matter how bad for you this may be. This culture is fostering extremely dangerous thought patterns in young people.
Because of the culture they were born into, almost half of American children between the first and the thirrd grade want to be thinner, and half of nine to10 year old girls are dieting (US Department of Health and Human Services). This should scare you. Young children are already seeing things wrong with their body, and they are forming a lifelong negative relationship with food that will effect every single thing they do. Diets are dangerous, and while they may seem harmless, they are creating guilt associated with eating, which is a perfect breeding ground for eating disorders. As a matter of fact, 35 percent of "occasional dieters" progress into pathological dieting (disordered eating), and as many as 25 percent advance into full blown eating disorders (Philadelphia Eating Disorder Examiner).
While, yes, dieting is dangerous, there is a way to be healthy and focus on your wellness in a safe way. If you wake up one day and realize that you are unhealthy and your body is not working the way it should, make a lifestyle change. Eat foods that are going to nourish your body. Food is your fuel, and your body can't run on starches, sugars, and artificial chemicals. Go for walks, go to the gym and rejuvenate your body. Make a lifelong commitment to being good to your body. Your body is all you have, nourish it and love it. But, if you want a cheesecake, eat a cheesecake. If you want to celebrate with a bottle of wine, have the time of your life. Life is too hard already -- don't deny yourself the simple pleasures.
