Diet Culture Is A Religion
Are you its disciple?
Earlier this week, I got a notification from Substack that The Fat Dispatch was #17 on the “Rising in Faith and Spirituality” chart, which made me chuckle. When I started writing here, I thought it would be a mishmash of thoughts, some about my journey with religion, some on fat liberation. It has turned out to be much more focused on fat liberation and activism, including a special edition every week called “No-Zempic Monday.” So, not really about religion. A few weeks ago, though, I shared my short story “Sinners in the Hands of a Skinny God,” and it was well-received.
So today, I thought I’d give you a little peek at the bigger writing project I’m working on, which combines religion and fat liberation and is centered around this thesis: diet culture is a religion, and you’re probably its disciple.
I’m not the first to make this observation—as far back as 1967, people were making this claim (see Lew Louderback’s piece in The Saturday Evening Post called “More People Should Be Fat”). But I think I have something to add to the conversation.
First of all, let’s start with some definitions:
What is diet culture?
In my own words, diet culture is the culturally embedded set of beliefs and practices, and the resulting community, that prioritizes physical performance as the pinnacle of the human experience.
That physical performance can look like a lot of different things—health, wellness, ability, thinness, perfection—but it comes back to how well a body performs.
It’s no secret that our society is obsessed with physical performance, but why do I say that it’s a religion?
What is religion?
Turns out, religion is really hard to define. You have to decide if you’re going to focus on the function of religion to define it or if you’re going to focus on its substance. Religion’s function? It could be to unite people in a moral community, or to provide a way to the promised land, or to make the world a better place. Religion’s substance? That’s the beliefs and practices that make it up, like theology and doctrine, sacraments like baptism or ordination, and the like. I’m still working on a definition that I like, but you get the idea. Maybe we can go simple and just use Merriam-Webster’s definition: “a personalized set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.” (But that leaves out the resulting community formed by religion.)
Diet culture as religion
To give some examples of how diet culture functions as a religion, it binds people together in a moral community around the fitness of bodies. Everyone is expected to participate in its imperatives—going to church (the gym), following its dietary code (dieting), abiding by its values (the endless pursuit of thinness), and more. It even has its own mantras (nothing tastes as good a skinny feels) and sacraments (diet and exercise).
As a society, we have followed its priests and acolytes (Bob Harper, Oprah, health and wellness influencers) to teach us how to live according to diet culture’s principles. We seek the good life through the lens of diet culture, and we know that the promised land of skinny, healthy, able bodies awaits us if we try hard enough.
Leaving diet culture behind
So, how do we step away from diet culture as a religion? I am still researching, but I think it is rather like the steps one must take when leaving a cult or when deconstructing:
Take stock: identify diet culture’s influence in your life
Make a break: decide you’re done with diet culture’s religion
Find a community: connect with other diet culture apostates
Heal yourself: pursue embodiment in your today body
Does any of this resonate with you? I’d love to hear from you!
Peace,
Amanda Martinez Beck
This interpretive lens you have chosen fits diet “cult-ure” (haha) perfectly. As I was reading, I thought about the utter devotion with which many people adhere to the tenets and practices of this “faith.” I have been to many WW meetings that resembled church services and heard many influencers rattle off sermons. I have seen the “miracle” supplements, work-out routines, and eating plans. I have also witnessed monk-like devotion to those “work-out routines and eating plans. Suffering holds an appeal—maybe even a place of honor—in a number of religious traditions and denominations, and it is common in dieting. The Christian idea that “the body is a temple” dovetails perfectly with “the body must be whole and flawless” philosophy of diet culture and the wellness movement. I could keep going here. Food for thought! Good luck with your writing!
This totally resonates with me! For me, diet culture popped up often within my religious circle, as you so brilliantly laid out in your "Sinners in the Hands of a Skinny God." I remember during my Elisabeth Elliot phase, a chapter in one of her books actually advocated for fasting as a way to lose weight, because too many Christians are "comfortable". Being skinny was a way to show your devotion to sacrifice. Even at the time, it left a bad taste in my mouth.