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Home » Uncategorized » Diet culture warped my childhood. I’m not letting it take over my adulthood as well – ABC News

Warning: This article mentions eating disorders, disordered eating and restrictive eating practices.

I grew up surrounded by fatphobia, and deeply enmeshed in diet culture.

Looking back now, it's entirely unsurprising to me that I developed disordered eating habits by the tender age of 13.

And it makessense that I took it too far whileforcing myself through thepunishing exercise regimes I'd trawl for through teen magazines.

These actions were affirmed by everything I read and consumed, much of what I heard and was told at home, and many of my school friends.

Two decades later, I no longer restrict food, exercise for weight loss or hate my body.

Instead, I nurse feelings of bitterness over the fact I spent so many years of my life believing in diet culture ditheringbetween furiously obsessing over adhering to the rules around it and feeling immense guilt for failing to.

But, even though I know the truth about diet culture and fatphobia now, I've still struggled to keep their influence out of my head.

"What would you tell your inner child about all this if you could talk to her?"

When my psychologist asked me that question a few months back, I baulked.

But then I indulged her, closed my eyes at her instruction and thought of the little girl that was once me.

Her question helped me realise part of the reason I've struggledwith this is that the needs I had as a child that any child has, really around learning about food and hunger and my body and its relationship to movement, weren't met.

Through sitting with that, I found it easier to give my past (and by extension, current) self-compassion for the things I once believed about food and weight and exercise.

She then asked how I might now meet those needs and help the adult version of me keep fatphobia and diet culture's ugly influences out of my mind.

I realised the answer was doing what she'd gently suggested: telling that symbolic inner child version of me all the things I wish I'd grown up being taught about food and my body.

ABC Everyday's Perspectives is all about giving you a chance to share what you're going through. Chances are there'sothers facingthe same highs, lows and life experiences. In a short paragraph, email us your pitch: everyday@abc.net.au

Here goes nothing.

You don't need to lose weight to be accepted, to be loved, to wear certain things, to be photographed, or to feel better about yourself. You don't need to lose weight, period.

And you don't have to try and hide your fatness from others. First of all, if you're fat, people know. But, most of all, there is nothing inherently wrong with weight gain or being fat. You'll truly believe and understand this one day, I promise.

There is, on the other hand, so much wrong with diets. Dieting is dangerous. And what's more, diets embarked on for diet culture reasons don't work.

So stop spending your pocket money on those aforementioned awful teen magazines for the sake of finding out what Zoe Kravitz (who hadan eating disorder at your time of obsession, BTW) consumes in a day, OK??

Likewise, calorie counting is never a good idea. In fact, it's an eating disorder warning sign.

Years from now, you'll wish you'd spent your time doing absolutely anything else.

Intuitive eating the practice of consuming what you want when you're hungry and stopping when you're full is so much better than dieting and counting calories.

You deserve to listen to your body's cravings, to learn its hunger and satiety cues. You deserve to enjoy multiple servings of Grandad's curry goat because it makes you feel warm inside.

Learning to eat intuitively will help you experience these things AKA what actually matters to you and move away from dieting and binge-eating behaviours, too.

Doing heaps of cardio for the purpose of becoming thin, as punishment or compensation for things you've eaten also sucks, so please stop that ASAP too.

Look for ways to move your body that bring you joy instead, and you'll eventually find them. The gym might work for some people, but it doesn't have to be it for you.

Because the adult version of me deserves to hear it and be reminded of it as much as the child version of me did.

Every time I re-read these notes, those gross food/body/exercise feelings dwindle enough for me to see them for what they are.

I carry on being fat, eating my favourite foods (and some) and engaging only in movement that feels good.

And it feels glorious.

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Diet culture warped my childhood. I'm not letting it take over my adulthood as well - ABC News

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Home » Uncategorized » Diet culture warped my childhood. I’m not letting it take over my adulthood as well – ABC News