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Diet culture makes people feel shame and guilt about the size of their body. The good news is, that’s been changing over the years.

On TikTok, you’ll find lots of creators with who are into body liberation — and they’re giving a big ol’ raspberry and hearty “f**k-ya’s-all” to anyone who thinks they should be hiding their larger-size bodies.

Here are three TikTok accounts who are inspiring people to feel better about their larger-size bodies.

3 Body Liberators to Follow on TikTok If You Want to Love Your Belly (or At Least Feel Neutral… Here are three TikTok accounts who are inspiring people to feel better about their bodies.

"Life-changing"?? I hesitated putting that word in the title. Didn't want to be "click-baity". I was going to leave it at "things" (which is a word I'm trying to get away from), but I wanted a descriptor. It really was a big deal for me to take off the fitness tracker, and uninstall the app. It flipped a switch on my thinking. So yeah, life-changing. 🙂 What about you? Could you take off that fitness tracker? Stop counting steps? Stop relying on an app to tell you if your energy is low?

4 Life-Changing Things That Happened When I Took Off My Fitness Tracker I’ve been using wearable fitness trackers for years. Even before the wearable ones were popular, I tracked my calories in and out online…

1 Simple Tip I Would Give Someone Who Wanted To Start Challenging The Food Police

“We have become a nation riddled with guilt based on the food we eat.” ~Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

I’d like you pause for a minute to really think about the questions I’m about to ask:

How often do you call foods “bad” or “good”? Or “healthy” or “unhealthy”?

How often do you call yourself “bad” or “good” depending on what food you ate?

How often do you stop yourself from eating something because it’s “bad” for you?

How often do you force yourself to eat something because it’s “good” for you?

Go ahead. Think about it. Grab a pen and paper if you really want to dig into it. Write it all down.

I bet you’ve done each of those at least once today.

One thing diet culture does to keep you on your toes is attach morality to food.

Eating sugar is poison.
Carbs are “bad” for you.
‘I was “good” today; I ate “healthy”.’
‘I was “bad”; I had takeout.’

This isn’t even limited to people who are dieting. People can feel morally superior to someone they see eating an ice cream cone as they eat hummus and veggies.

Diet culture has attached morality to something that…has no morality.

Food is food. It’s neither “good” nor “bad”. It’s neither “healthy” or “unhealthy”.

Food is something that we as humans need to survive. It’s something that we should give to our bodies freely; not something that can only be had if we’re “good”. It’s not something we should be deprived of because it’s “bad”.

Challenge The Food Police
One way you can start challenging the food police is to become aware — without judgement — of when you’re applying morality to food.

Over the next few days, I challenge you to write down your thoughts and any spoken words that pop up in relation to food.

Are you reaching for a cookie but stopping yourself from eating it? Is your self-talk whispering that you’re going to get fat if you eat because cookies are “bad”?

What are you actually saying out loud about yourself in relation to food? (‘I was “good” today; I didn’t have wine.’)

You can also add in what you’re feeling as these thoughts pop up. Guilt? Shame? Pride? Something else?

If you’re ready to add on an extra layer: become aware (again, without judgement!) of how other people add morality to food, whether it’s something you read or something a friend says.

Becoming aware of the false association of food with morality, and the thoughts and feelings that go along with it, will help you to untangle a normal bodily function (eating food) from the pressure of diet culture.

Let me know how the challenge goes! **kTheFoodPolice

Photo Credit: Tim Mossholder - Unsplash

Image Description: An image of a square board made of different colored triangles (almost like a quilt) with words You belong in white. The board, with a black border, is surrounded by plants.

What Would Life Be Like If You’d Never Even Heard of "Weight Loss"?

Part of rejecting diet culture is rejecting the concept of “weight loss”, and all the baggage that comes along with it — like guilt and shame.

I haven’t tried to intentionally “lose weight” in slightly over a year. Yet I still have to fight the concept of “weight loss” when I poke at my belly or if a piece of clothing feels a tad tighter.

This idea of a “perfect body” is deeply ingrained into our society — and in ourselves. It’s insidious.

And it robs you of time.

I sometimes wonder what life — and the world — would be like if this idea we must have a thin (white) body had never come into our psyche. (I also wonder what the world would be like if white people had never set out to colonize the world, and minded their own business. But that’s for another essay.)

What if bodies were just…bodies.

What if there was representation of all shapes and sizes when it came to what we see in our day-to-day life?

What if we weren’t told what to eat, when to eat, how much to eat and why to eat?

What if we weren’t told we must be a certain weight to be “healthy”? (Or to find love? Or to fit in?)

The reality is, you can’t tell how “healthy” somebody is just by looking at the size of their body.

The reality is, diets don’t work. And weight stigma and weight bias can do more harm than being in a larger-sized body.

It makes me wonder where all that wasted time and energy could have been better spent.

What would you focus your time and energy on if you weren’t focused on weighing yourself? Or weighing food?

What could you accomplish if you weren’t reading books on the latest diet, emptying your fridge and pantry, and spending time figuring out new recipes for meals you don’t really want to eat? Only to do the same thing year after year after year.

What about all the time spent agonizing over what to have when eating out — and dealing with that fear of missing out on some great food?

What about time spent wondering whether you should eat the cookie sitting in the pantry?

What if you just ate the damn cookie — and got on with more important things in life?

Three Books To Get Started Learning About Anti-Diet Culture

I can easily say I’ve been interested in nutrition and exercise for more than half my life. I can distinctly remember learning about the calorie counts of food and how the body used those calories — and how much we burned when we exercised — or slept — while in my mid-20s.

Joining a weight training class upped my interest as my body changed from a former rocker-chick sloucher to somebody who could actually sit up straight for long periods of time. (Shocker! I had not thought it possible.)

And then I learned even more by studying with Precision Nutrition; getting into the mindset of things and how to coach behaviour change.

Something always felt just a touch off when it came to “weight loss” — whether helping others or my own. Being “overweight” wasn’t about the food. It was about our relationship to food. It was about the “why” of eating in the first place. And those reasons? Were all about external cues.

“Weight loss” isn’t going to make anybody happy or fix your problems. It can make things worse.

So, what’s the solution?

Ditching diet culture completely, and starting from scratch. Or rather, not just ditching it but outright rejecting it. With gusto — like maybe adding the word “f**k” to things. **kTheFoodPolice

So, if you’re interested in learning more about anti-diet culture, here are three books that helped reframe my views on “weight loss” and “dieting” — and reject diet culture:

1) Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating by Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, CEDS: This is the first book I read on the subject, and it really helped to see her perspective on diet culture. What I liked most about this book is the way it shows how much time you lose when you’re focused on food and “weight loss”. Christy also brings in a journalistic approach to her writing.

2) Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach by Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN, CEDRD-S and Elyse Resch, MS, RDN, DECRD-S, FAND: This is the book that inspired Christy Harrison to write Anti-Diet. This book digs in more deeply to research and sets up a framework of ten principles to help you move away from a “diet” mentality.

3) The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy: I include this “manifesto for fighting the patriarchy” because, to me, part of rejecting diet culture is empowering yourself. Something needs to fill that vacuum of relying on external validation, and you need to set boundaries for yourself — and others.

Let me know if you end up reading any of these and if it changed your perspective on “weight loss” and “dieting”.

3 Lenses I’m Using to Look at Diet Culture

I’m getting a “this is just the tip of the iceberg” feeling when sitting down to write. There’s so much I want to talk about, and it’s fascinating how that pops out more fully when you willingly add constraints (like max 250 words) to your writing.

I can’t talk about diet culture/anti-diet culture without bringing in things like body shaming and fatphobia.

I can’t bring those up without talking about how white supremacy and the patriarchy come into play by wanting all bodies to follow the thin, white female pattern.

Not to mention these bodies need to be cisgender, heterosexual and able-bodied.

That’s a lot to unpack.

I’m currently using three lenses to think about all this:

Lens #1: **kTheFoodPolice
This is the new direction my business is going in. I want to act as the catalyst to help people become aware of their disordered eating behaviours — and why they’re doing them.

The words were chosen deliberately, especially the word ‘f**k’.

And my hope is that over the next few years, as I continue to learn more and more, I’ll be able to help people change their behaviours to focus on what’s really important to them — instead of spending time focused on food.

Lens #2: Body Shaming / Unsolicited Advice or Feedback
Three words: Mind your business.

Don’t comment on people’s bodies or food choices. Don’t tell them what they should or shouldn’t be eating. Don’t give advice or feedback unless you’re specifically asked for it. On anything.

Mind. Your. Business. It’s not easy to do…

Lens #3: Feminism
This one was a slow awakening. Always felt it simmering but not quite able to put my finger on it. So many times I was told I was overreacting when standing up for myself, or I should just “be good” and toe the line. Mostly from men, but from women as well.

One book that helped clear my mind on this was “The 7 Necessary Sins For Women and Girls” by Mona Eltahawy. Mona taught me it’s okay — and even powerful — to say f**k.

It would be great to connect with other people who are interested in these same topics — so if any of the above resonates and you have questions, feel free to reach out!

Why I'm Going To Write Online About Anti-Diet Culture So That You Can Finally Live Without Diet Rules

I recently signed up for a 30-day intensive writing course to help me get all these thoughts and ideas I have about anti-diet culture out into the world.

Here are a few reasons why I want to do this:

1) People caught up in diet culture are not aware of its origins in white supremacy and the patriarchy.

2) I want to help people untangle their self-worth from their body.

3) Diets don’t work – and depriving yourself of food creates a vicious cycle of cravings and guilt. I want to help break that cycle

I spent 20 years helping people “lose weight”. And while I tried to do it in a “healthy” way, I’m finally at a point where I’ve had more than enough of the food police, with all of their food rules, making you feel guilt and shame for the simple act of…eating. It’s time to tell the food police to f**k off.

Over the next 30 days, I plan on writing about how diet rules hurt instead of help, how to recognize diet culture out in the wild and how to change how you see food.

I want to help you see that diet culture has stolen time from you.

I want to help you understand that it’s not your fault.

I want to help you enjoy food again, without guilt or shame – and without any rules.

Ready to go? Say it with me… **kTheFoodPolice