By: Taylor Ashley (she/her) RP, CCTP-II
Starting in 1992, International No Diet Day was established as a way to promote body acceptance, celebrate body diversity, and bring attention to society's unhealthy obsession with diet culture and thinness. The idea that thinness is an accurate indication of health has led us to participate in extreme measures to meet this societal expectation. But instead of creating ‘healthier’ people, it has perpetuated unhealthy behaviors and relationships with food and our bodies; and if we are truly aiming for ‘health’ as we claim, isn’t this the opposite of what we want to achieve?
An influencer @michelleleman recently spoke about self-esteem and health. She noted that for people to want to take care of themselves they need to believe they are worth caring for. We do not encourage people to have a healthy relationship with their bodies through shame and criticism (how diet culture makes money), but instead by focusing on the individual as a human and bringing attention to worth outside their body. The last time you thought about the people in your life and why you value them, did their bodies ever make the list of reasons?
International No Diet Day promotes the discussion about lifestyle, well-being, and acceptance and aims to take the focus off aesthetics and shame. If we bring awareness to how prominent conversations about food, bodies, working out, and the latest FAD diet are in our day-to-day interactions then we can work on changing this pattern.
“Did you know? An estimated 45 million people go on a diet each year. The diet industry, in turn, makes over $60million each year. 95% of diets do not work. This is why people need to KEEP dieting. ”
Lifestyle changes and dieting are two very different things.
Diets often focus on food restriction, rigid workout schedules, and cutting out entire food groups, usually for the sake of aesthetics. Diets are often short-term and unrealistic to maintain long-term, and when stopped cause a person to gain back weight lost.
Lifestyle changes, on the other hand, focus on long-term maintenance for the sake of physical functioning and feeling better. Lifestyle focuses on balanced meals, conditioning your body for activities you enjoy and make you feel energized, and addressing basic needs like appropriate sleep and rest, hydration, and digestion. The goal of lifestyle modifications is to help you celebrate your body and what it is capable of, not to change it.
Our bodies are not the problem- the way we think about our bodies is.
“How can we participate in No Diet Day? Focusing on values, characteristics, contributions, and kindness in one another is a great way to celebrate and participate in No-Diet Day! ”
Other ways are through researching and supporting businesses that offer inclusive sizing and educating yourself about genuine health information, body acceptance, and health-at-every-size (HAES). Pick an activity that celebrates you, connect with friends, bring attention to your hunger cues, and how your body feels, and slow down to see if you are listening and respecting what your body is trying to tell you.
Small changes can make a big impact on how we think, and talk, about health and bodies. There is room for every BODY. Body acceptance asks that we respect ourselves every day, even when we don’t like every part of our body every day, and that’s okay. Let's practice self-care and compassion, versus shame and criticism, together.
On May 6th, let’s make a small difference. Let’s enjoy one day of No-Diets.