Diet culture can be harmful and put you at risk for developing an eating disorder or form disordered eating habits. Diet culture is a pervasive belief that appearance and body shape are more important than physical, psychological, and general well-being. It is more of an idea that if you can control your body, and more importantly your diet, this is normal. Diet’s emphasize limiting what and how much you eat, it can lead you to count calories or choose low fat and low carb options. You can develop more attention towards weighing yourself frequently and if you don’t reach your weight loss goals or gain weight, this can negatively impact your mood and motivation. Diet culture normalizes labeling food as good or bad and thinking it is more of a transaction. This means, you either earn it or don’t deserve it depending on how much you have exercised or how you have eaten that day or week so far. Beyond this, it can extend to labeling yourself as good or bad for eating some of these foods.
How Diet Impacts Anxiety (& Stress)
With juggling many responsibilities including work, family, friends, and other responsibilities, it is easy to feel fatigued and overwhelmed. We know practicing self-care is important however at times can be difficult when having so much to do. One of the ways to cope with stress and anxiety is through our diet, via healthy eating. When stressed or anxious we are often consuming a lot of quick, unhealthy foods that only make us feel worse. We often feel these foods make us feel better, however stress-eating has been shown to be an ineffective coping strategy that can actually cause us to feel more anxious, moody and fatigued.