S3M8 - MoF Mini: Diet Culture- Transcript

This episode released on December 2, 2020. For complete episode info, visit this page!

Saraya Boghani: Welcome to another Matter of Fat mini.

Cat Polivoda: It's our last minisode of the season.

SB: As you may know, Matter of Fat is a body-positive podcast with Midwest sensibilities.

CP: We use a lot of different words, phrases or concepts on the pod that might be unfamiliar or could use a deeper dive for understanding. We're using this Matter of Fat mini to get into diet and weight loss culture.

SB: But first, we have to introduce ourselves.

CP: Yes! Hi, I'm Cat Polivoda, a local fat feminist and shop owner—

SB: —and I'm Saraya Boghani a fat, multiracial, Minneapolitan millennial.

CP: And we're here to unpack—

CP+SB: —diet culture.

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SB: By now, you know how these minisodes roll. So let's get it started with the definition. And ope, uh, we should mention from the jump that we will be talking about dieting and diet culture, which includes a discussion of restrictive and disordered eating. So like, please do with that what you will

CP: Diet and weight loss culture—or, often shortened to just "diet culture"—is a system of beliefs that glorifies thinness, equates health to moral virtue, and promotes weight loss at any cost. It's so ingrained into how we're taught to see the world that it's honestly sometimes hard to notice.

SB: Yeah. Christy Harrison, an anti-diet dietician, and host of the popular podcast Food Psych, goes as far to say that, quote-unquote:

"By and large, Western culture is diet culture." And, that makes sense! Western culture, and especially American culture, has a lot of issues that make it easier for diet culture to thrive.

CP: And you might be thinking, "Oh my gosh, this sounds awful, but I'm not on a diet, so this doesn't really apply to me." Well, au contraire!

SB: (laughs) I love that, introducing a new exclamation this late into Season 3 is very bold, very fun, au contraire, I'm here for it, love it.

CP: Uh, yes, because diet culture and being on a diet are not the same. Christy Harrison maintains that, "You don't have to follow any sort of official diet to be caught up in the culture of dieting."

You know, diet culture is less about like, a specific diet, and more about unchallenged beliefs about thinness, fatness, health, and morality.

SB: Precisely.

So Ragen Chastain, who's a speaker; writer; and fat athlete, lays out six ways diet culture shows up in a 2019 piece that she did for the National Eating Disorders Association. She explains that:

“Diet culture conflates size and health, pathologizing some bodies. It centers rules and restriction around eating as a means to manipulate body size without any proof that long-term changes are possible. It applies morals to people based on their body size. Diet culture creates thin privilege that creates thin policing of jobs, comfort, access, and benefits. It makes exercise punishment instead of a personal joy or goal-setting, and diet culture sees fat people as less valuable and more risk-able or more risk-prone.”

CP: You know, Saraya, as you went down that list, I was thinking, "Right, right, right," and I imagine like, many others are too, but some of you are probably hearing this list thinking "What do these even mean?" Ha-ha, don't fear, that is why we're here!

SB: We'll dive into all of those pieces of diet culture, but first we wanna give you a little background on the origins of this insidious system.

So, uh, humans eat and have a diet, right? Like, the definition of diet is the types of food that someone—or like a community—habitually eats. What we're covering is how we have shaped our habitual consumption over and over and over again, to fight fatness.

CP: Okay, I'm already not into this, but the "over and over and over again" sounds very ominous.

SB: It is! It is. The history of dieting is atrocious, but I would say, like, so is human history.

CP: Yup!

SB: Mhmm. And I will say that we keep fighting against fatness, and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Um, but let's like, let's jump in a time machine and go back a long, long time ago.

CP: Okay, I'm with you! Let's go there.

SB: Okay. So, recorded dieting or restricting goes all the way back to the Greeks. So physical prowess was linked to mental ability, uh, being fat meant that you were not disciplined or mentally able to do what a thin person could. Um, Hippocrates—

CP: Woah, woah wait. Are we talking about Hippocrates? Like, the Hippocratic oath that doctors take, Hippocrates?

SB: Yeah! One in the same!

CP: Wow!

SB: He was a huge and important part of medical innovation, and also suggested that fatness often aligned with like, lots of other symptoms, and so would prescribe restricted eating, increased activity, and vomiting to cure it!

CP: Okay. Origins of dieting, right there.

SB: Yes, exactly. And also like, we're considering early origins, I think it's fair to mention religion. So, I'm not diving into this as much as it's due, or like, should be doven into—dived into? Whatever, because—

CP: —Doven, yeah.

SB: Yeah, it works. Because, contrasting and comparing religious and like, diet culture paradigms, is just like a whole different episode--or even like, a whole different podcast.

Um, however, when we think about morality and fatness, I think religious morality can be like, a big part of that. And, like for an Abrahamic example, gluttony and how our physical vessel is like, representative of Earthly sins, I think this plays out in other religions too.

CP: Oh, this is like fascinating, and I would love to think more about that, but, so--we just can't though! I mean like, we don't have the capacity to cover all of that in the rest of our minisode. But like, isn't that how it goes? There's always so much good stuff to dive into.

SB: Yeah, and, you're absolutely right, and also like, these concepts will regularly resurface as we move forward in the future. So let's, let's fast forward, Cat, to 1558.

CP: (laughs) Saraya, wait, fast forward to 1558?

SB: Yeah! Yeah, we went from the Greeks and like, early religion, to 1558. That's like, a huge fast-forward usually, but like, just to appease you, I am going to run through, like, so many decades right here.

CP: Gimme the quick hits. Let's do it!

SB: Strap in, strap in baby. Okay. So in 1558, Luigi Cornaro published the first recorded diet book, called The Art of Living Long, and focused on ingesting 14 ounces of wine and 12 ounces of food a day. (Cat laughs)

Yeah. And then, in 1614, Giacomo Castelvetro released The Fruits, Herbs, and Vegetables of Italy, which, like, is basically the foundation for today's Mediterranean diet, so.

CP: The ever-popular, I mean, are the royalties happening? Is he getting that money?

SB: The estate—he's not getting money. (Cat laughs) The estate is probably pissed, I don't know if they're getting all of those royalties, who knows. Again, another podcast. But yeah, it's still around. Um, so let's--so that was 1614. Let's, we're gonna jump to the 1800s.

So romanticism in the 1800s led to tighter-fitting clothing and a lot of that--not all of it, but a lot of it--qwas led by the "it" boy, Lord Byron, (Cat cracks up) you know, the bad boy poet of the age!

CP: Wow.

SB: And he was so concerned about changing his thin and pale figure that he would drink vinegar and eat potatoes doused in vinegar daily.

CP: Ughh!

SB: I just, he was just worried and like, at the time, like being very thin, being very pale, was just in vogue and people got very, very sick following suit, but they were just trying to be a hot boy too, y'know!

CP: Ok, this sounds horrendous and I mean, "hot boy?" Like, it sounds like vinegar boy summer. (Saraya laughs) Honestly, I can smell it already.

SB: Oh my God, vinegar boy summer! Yeah, like, I would argue that he would be a great influencer today. He'd be out here running flat tummy tea no doubt, no doubt. And honestly, the apple cider vinegart, that diet, is still alive and well today, so he's not far off.

CP: Oh gosh, you're right. I mean, he'd have his own cleanses. He'd host retreats. Gwyneth wouldn't even know what to do with Lord Byron was on the scene!

SB: LB, coming for you! Okay. You want to know who hosted retreats and sounds like a real downer? The inventor of Graham crackers! He basically said that fat was bad for you, and led to amoral and promiscuous behavior.

CP: The man who's made smores possible? I cannot.

SB: The 19th century was wild for that. Yes. Yes. And this is like, more of a general reflection when doing this research, but human history has really focused on human value, but not human worth, and I just think dieting culture subsists on this.

CP: Woo, yeah, it sure does.

SB: Okay. So we, around this time, we've got mid 19th-century evolutionary biologists coming in hot with anti-fatness, basically framing that those with more fat—you know, mostly non-white men—as evolutionarily inferior.

CP: Because they didn't share the same characteristics with white men? I mean, we also talked about this in our fatphobia minisode and Sabrina Strings work about how anti-fatness is intertwined with racism, but yikes!

SB: Yeah, I know. And like, science and the scientific method have grown so so much, but like, there are just some studies done then that I imagine would be laughed out of like, a peer reviewed journal today.

CP: Oh, totally.

SB: And yet, that research and the sentiment of it still holds so much water for us today. May I cite the BMI just as an example.

CP: Ooof, truly! Okay, but can you go back to something that you said a moment ago about diet culture focusing on human value and not human worth? That feels like, I dunno, bold and also kind of like a very gold statement that we should break down more for the people.

SB: Yeah, absolutely. So I think it coincides with like the pathologizing of fatness as well. So as fatness is tied with blackness and womanhood and poverty and a slew of other, you know, air quotes here, "socially displeasing" things, I think dollar signs start popping up for people everywhere.

So like, the life insurance industry furthered medicalized fatphobia at this point in history, if we're gonna go back to my little timeline. So, uh, Christy Harrison notes that the life insurance industry was trying to make money by having folks live a long time and pay out the duration of it. So early research, uh, on wealthy middle-aged white men, which was the population that they did the research on, found that larger men were dying earlier than the others. So both insurance companies and doctors combined forces to emphasize weight reduction, hoping that would reduce health risks overall.

CP: But we know health isn't that simple. And I just, okay, the value of someone living longer to pay out insurance companies was more important than lik,e actually thinking about factors that could negatively impact someone's quality of life or longevity of life? Now that is what's "socially displeasing" here!

SB: (Laughs) Displeasing, it's socially displeasing. It's bananas. Yes. And there is so much more information about this out there. Like we're focusing in on very small snapshots of a lot of history, so please check out some of the resources if you're interested in learning more beyond this minisode, there's a ton more to investigate.

For instance, like, our national obsession with obesity, fatness and moral aptitude, I think like could be attributed to the Great Depression and World War II rationing, where access to food was so limited that fatness was acquainted with greed and corruption.

And again, another whole podcast episode--or series, to be honest.

CP: Truly. I mean, maybe next season? But okay Saraya, we're still only at World War II?

SB: Yes! Yes, we're—you're right, we're at World War II, okay, home stretch to the end of the 20th century here.

So, okay. 1949, doctors formed the National Obesity Society to understand the causes, consequences, and prevention and treatment of obesity. A year later, a British study had two groups of people overeat for a week. Thin people's metabolism raised when they overate, to burn off the excess calories. Overweight people's did not rise, leading the research to include that, quote-unquote, "diet advice is heartless and out of date." 1950!

CP: 1950, my gosh! It's like, we've been knowing this, why aren't people talking more about it?

SB: Right. Uh, okay. So 1962 was the first time a small group met in Queens to watch their weight. They used a diet designed for cardiac patients generated by the New York Department of Public Health, and kicked off a great business plan that has taken over the world.

CP: And that's what turned into Weight Watchers, right?

SB: They were watching their weight. They're still watching your weight! Go sign up! Go join them! No, don't do that, but—

CP: —Don't do it, but they'll take your money!

SB: I'm gonna, like, jump so far ahead for you for this, Cat. Do you want to hear a wild diet that happened as recently as 2013?

CP: I'm scared.

SB: It is kind of scary! So in 2013, the cotton ball diet came out, uh, on the scene; where people would dip cotton balls in smoothies or juices and then eat them, or like, drink them, I guess? (Cat makes noises of disgust) I don't know, and supposedly it was to keep you feeling full without gaining weight, but it's incredibly dangerous. I just, I don't know how you think it isn't dangerous. And I just found a bunch of wild diets in this research for this minisode, and it just makes me so sad that people would go to such great lengths to make their lives miserable because our society has made being fat so seemingly miserable.

CP: It's just such a lose-lose situation! And it's hard to fight your way out of it when you are internally and externally surrounded by it. It may not be easy to be fat positive, but man, I am so much happier for it.

SB: Yeah dude, definitely happier to try and work outside of that cycle.

CP: Our bodies just like, aren't likely to change, so, simply stated, a commitment to diet culture is a bad investment.

SB: It is! And we see the costly way diet culture hurts everyone--fat people especially, yes, of course. and also literally everyone.

CP: Right. Diet culture objectively makes our lives worse. We spend our precious time, energy and money on unsustainable pursuits to change ourselves. When in the throws of dieting or being overly-focused on how our bodies look, we're not present in our lives; we're distracted. And, diet culture can even get in the way of our health!

SB: Mhmm. Harrison reminds us that, quote-unquote:

"Dieting is against your best interests. It puts you at war with yourself and takes away your energy from fighting so many more important battles."

I mean, okay, in the year 2020, we have some important battles to fight.

CP: So many! This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth that goes:

"A culture fixated on female fitness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession with female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women's history."

I mean, that is some powerful shit!

SB: Mhmm. Dieting and being absorbed with worries about our bodies takes our attention away from more worthwhile and sustainable pursuits.

CP: Yes! I mean, how much more time would you have if you stopped counting calories, or stopped exercising as a means of punishment, or stopped disparaging your body or others' bodies? So much time! To do big things like, I don't know, get a Master's degree, open a business, start a podcast—

SB: (laughs) —or like, create more time for the simple pleasures of life. Like more time to chill, go to therapy, laugh with friends, volunteer, read, like insert anything else here. Think about the time and energy that can be reclaimed.

CP: Okay, and speaking of friends—'cause you know, on this podcast we love friends—I think that diet culture seeps into our relationships and that can have a really profound, negative impact there as well.

SB: Ooo girl, say more!

CP: Okay, so, one big thing I think about are the gross ways that people bond over restrictive eating, or share compliments about bodies or weight, and then how folks can be excluded if they don't ascribe to the same ideals--or maybe they do ascribe to those ideas, but they're like, can't get their pesky bodies on board, no matter how hard they try?

SB: Ugh, to your point earlier, that's just not how bodies work!

CP: No! And I guess—so, to speak very personally here, you know, there's some people I'd love to be closer to and to connect with more deeply, but I see their commitment to diet culture as a slap in the face to my humanity and my lived experiences. And it just makes me sad, and mad, and feels like, I don't know, like the level of education and explaining and convincing necessary to get them to even be at a place where they see my humanity? It feels just like a lot more than I have capacity for sometimes.

SB: Yeah, I can empathize with that and diet culture can do a number on our relationships. And I'm, I'm kinda surprised, cause I agree with all this, but I thought you were actually going to talk more about like external social situations.

CP: Oh, ok, now you say more!

SB: Ok! So like, how diet culture can show up in social situations or in public with others. There are internal forces that like, we're kind of talking about like, um, obsessive or anxious thoughts about food, weight, or even hunger that can creep up for us.

CP: Uh, yeah, so like not being present.

SB: Mhmm, yup. And external forces, like worrying, like someone might judge your body, or police what you eat.

CP: Like, for not following the diet culture rules!

SB: Yes, you're not in line! And isn't that so relatable? I mean, whether at a family function or out at a bar in the before times with friends, I think that's something lots of us have experienced and we've perpetuated!

CP: Right! You know, you're right. I think that most of us have experience with being negatively impacted by these kinds of things, and also participating in components of diet culture. Things like commenting on other's bodies, or moralizing food--which, you know, is saying, like, that food is good or bad, and that the people who eat it are being good or being bad. Or, you know, just like, participating in plain old fatphobic behavior.

SB: Oh, yup. That's a diet culture classic, fatphobic behavior. (laughs)

CP: Yup!

SB: Another way we see diet culture showing up is that commitment to it convinces us that we'll only have fulfillment in our lives when we reached that ever-elusive "After" photo, or like, somehow turn back time to be a younger version of ourselves through dieting.

CP: Oh yeah. It is heartbreaking to think about how many people are in the world right now who feel like their lives are on hold.

SB: Oh, it's the biggest scam! Think of how many people have thought they shouldn't pursue a passion or that they should hold off because they need to change themselves first.

CP: News flash! Just because your body gets smaller, it doesn't mean your problems disappear. Work with what you've got now, people! There is no sense in waiting.

SB: And this is, like, a pretty broad stroke, but if what you want to do desperately requires a major unsustainable change, how much do you gain by pursuing that interest? And like, inversely, what would it take for you to be a pioneer being the person you are now in that space?

CP: Oh, yes! Great stuff to consider.

One final biggie, that's probably on my mind because of one of our recent minisodes, is our society's dedication to diet culture is actually getting in the way of our health.

SB: Oh yeah, and of course, like, health isn't something that is important to everyone, and not ever a moral obligation or prerequisite for respect.

CP: Oh yes, totally, of course. But it's just such an irony here that something like diet culture that masquerades as wellness is actually one of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of wellness for all?

SB: Yeah, diet culture is more concerned with weight loss than health. As an example of this Ragen Chastain puts it, quote:

"Diet culture creates a belief that it's okay to risk the life of a fat person in order to make them a thin person. Diet culture wants fat people to be thin or dead, and doesn't seem to care much which." Unquote.

CP: Ooooo!

SB: Damn, Ragen!

CP: Oh my gosh. (sighs)

This is especially scary when we know that it is unlikely that fat people will ever become thin. Diet culture thrives on rules and restriction, especially around eating, but offers no proof that long-term changes are possible. It's dangerous and, decidedly, not healthy.

SB: Yeah, Virginia Heffernan's 2019 Wired article, called "Watching Our Weight Could Be Killing Us"—I mean, (laughs)

CP: Mincing no words there!

SB: No, but it states that, "the American Journal of Physiology, Endocrinology and Metabolism (2014) and Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health (2016) note that food restriction of almost any form--famine, elimination, diets, wellness diets--routinely upsets hormonal regulation, potentially setting off serious mental and physical health problems and, paradoxically, weight gain."

CP: Oh, I mean, can I print out that quote and distribute it to others if they express concern about my weight?

SB: I say, business cards, baby! Like, make it rain. Just get one of those little guns and just shoot it out.

CP: Brrrrrrap!

SB: Oh, Marilyn Wann has a great quote. They say, "The only thing anyone can diagnose by looking at a fat person is their own level of prejudice toward fat people."

CP: Yeah! Like, unless you're a health professional with my chart in hand and me in front of you, you know nothing about my health.

SB: And even then, diet cultures grip is holding tight to our medical system. You know, couple that with often unchecked fatphobia, and that'll lead to fat people often not getting the care we need, and even thin people getting underdiagnosed because, you know, they—air quotes—"look healthy."

CP: Also along the lines of health—and also, joy—diet culture makes it more difficult for fat folks to engage in fitness, and takes the fun out of exercise for everyone.

In our recent minisode about fitness and fatness—

SB: And, and, in the related video we did in collaboration with the Twin Cities PBS station—

CP: —Yes, yes! In our mini and the video and corresponding article we authored for TPT, we talked about this in depth, but basically: when we look at exercise as a punishment, or just a way to lose weight or avoid getting fat, we take the joy out of it. And, for what it's worth, we also undervalue the actual health benefits of movement.

SB: To divest from diet culture means we could make movement options available and accessible to all people. I mean, if we want to talk about personal freedoms in the U.S., This is the ultimate version of that in my opinion.

CP: Oh, right. Commitment to diet culture stands in the way.

So, okay, let's do it! Let's ditch diet culture.

SB: Okay! I'm with ya, sister. Also, easier said than done, my dude.

CP: Isn't that just the thing? Like other systems and deeply-seated cultural beliefs, there's not just like a quick, snap-your-finger solution for any of this, but we have lots of thoughts about where we might go from here.

SB: Is that Vivi in the background? I think she has some thoughts too.

CP: (laughs) Oh God, Vivi has all the thoughts, every time we record.

SB: Your cat is in the fight with us! (Cat laughs) I love it. Okay, and is also the case when tackling diet culture, and also other systems and beliefs, these steps for action relate to us as individuals and also us collectively as a culture. It's a both-and situation, y'all.

CP: I think we just start with being aware of it, you know? Maybe you've already been aware of diet culture's influence on your life, and the lives of those around you, or maybe it's new to you. But in any case, opening up your eyes is really a key.

SB: And it can be kind of sneaky. It has, like, a lot of different faces.

CP: Oh my gosh, yes, it does. You know, work around fat liberation is something that I've been invested in for a while. And still, like, sometimes I catch myself thinking things or telling myself stories based on diet cultures influence. No matter where you are in your journey— (Saraya laughs) —and you know I hate that, but it's very applicable here!

SB: I know, but you used it, you used it, I love it.

CP: No matter where you are on your path, um, making a point to be aware of this stuff in like, all of its sneaky forms is important.

SB: Yeah. When you become more aware, you're then better positioned to address it, or call it out if that's something that feels possible for you. And it it's like such a learning process; I liken it to learning how to read.

So when I was a kid, I was so astonished and excited when I could finally understand all of the big billboards I had passed for years without comprehension.

CP: Oh my God, that's so wholesome. (Both laugh)

SB: Thank you, thank you.

CP: Little Saraya, so excited.

SB: It was just like such a big moment to be like, "Wow, there's this whole part of the world that I didn't even know existed until now," until I learned how to do that. And like, now that like, I and you are aware of diet culture, like—you can just more obviously see it everywhere, sometimes even on billboards.

CP: Or even hearing it on the airwaves as an underwriting partner for NPR, ahem, NOOM.

SB: (laughs) That's a great example. Um, you can see it packaged up in a pretty bow and sold to you as the—-you know, air quote—options" here.

CP: So like, for example, the Weight Watchers CEO—or WW CEO—shared that they believe that wellness is not just about one thing; ultimately, they're looking for sustainable options for people to live the healthiest lives they want to live.

SB: Blegh.

CP: And I'm just like, slapping a huge asterisk on that, as like, capitalism bundled up as a choice for you and diet culture.

SB: Ugh. AnCP:d, you know, I would say maybe a better way to read and understand the different faces of diet culture is to diversify your information sources. Don't just rely on what the WW CEO has to share; consider different frameworks to conceptualize health and eating. Some things that are pretty popular are intuitive eating, or HAES, which is "Health at Every Size."

CP: And also, you know, critique those things too! One of my favorite voices that is not afraid to stir the pot with critiques of HAES and especially intuitive eating is Jessica Wilson. Um, jessicawilson.msrd on Instagram, really worth a follow .

SB: Yeah, and, be critical of us too! I mean, we're sharing what we're learning and I know there is always more developing and more out there for us to understand. And everything is so intertwined with systems that we say we're fighting against--racism, patriarchy, capitalism--and so once you know how to see it, you just see more and more instances of it working in concert.

CP: I know we've shared this sentiment before, but it feels just like, really necessary to say it again, especially as we're working to resist diet culture: live your life right now! Push back against that pressure to wait until your body is different to pursue your hopes and dreams. I mean, what a powerful stance to take for yourself and to model for those around you.

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SB: Well, we certainly didn't restrict ourselves to a specific time with this minisode, ah? Hmm? (Cat scoffs) Bad pun alert.

CP: So bad—but there is just so much to say! Hopefully you enjoyed our research and our takes on diet culture.

SB: If you want more—which I would highly recommend, because the research for this got us fired up, feel free to check out the linked resources in our show notes.

CP: Yep. You'll find those at matteroffatpod.com along with other episodes, transcripts, and more.

SB: And, if you like what we're doing here, share Matter of Fat with a friend. You know, 'tis the season, and it's free 99.

CP: (laughs) What a screaming deal! Thank you all for exploring diet culture with us as—

CP+SB: —a Matter of Fat.

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