The seaweed is always greener in somebody else's lake.
Whenever I come across the common phrase "the grass is always greener on the other side," my mind immediately hears the sunny voice of Sebastian from The Little Mermaid singing these wise fords at the start of "Under the Sea." This really has nothing to do with what I'm about to talk about, except that this phrase has come to mind often over the last several months, and I thought I would include a fun little introduction to the much less fun, but equally important, issues I want to address.
To be honest, I'm not exactly sure how to start this post. I've spent some time collecting research in preparation for writing this, and since I've been so well trained in writing formal-sounding research papers for school, I'm having a hard time not trying to put this into an academic framework. But you don't want to read some boring old research paper, and I have far too many thoughts to adhere to the confines of professionalism, so instead I'm just going to write a little bit of a brain dump and sincerely hope that something sticks.
I love recording the podcast with Ashley; I love being silly and fun and positive and I truly hope that it brings you some joy. But as much as positivity is important, I also think it is important to be honest and real about the not-so-joyful parts of life. I see this blog as an opportunity to share my perspective, with the hope that it will mean something to someone. We may not have a huge platform (yet, of course we hope it will grow!), but I still believe that I have been given a voice for a reason and I want to use it to speak for those who can't, or who are afraid too, or who might not even know that there's something they need to say. And that may be you, dear reader, because today I want to talk a little bit about diet culture and what is (from my perspective) society's dangerous narrative around food, and I wonder if you might be affected by this more than you think you are.
This topic has been on my mind for a while, I think since the beginning of Lent this year. I remember sitting in church on Ash Wednesday, half paying attention and half spacing out as I contemplated how I was going to be a better person this Lent. My mind raced with guilt that I'd been home for nearly two months, missing the entire semester of school so I could recover fully from being underweight and malnourished, yet somehow had failed to gain more than a couple pounds. Instead of giving up sugary drinks or ice cream, I was going to consume more. God's purpose for me certainly wasn't to sit cooked up inside my house revolving my whole day around eating every 1.5 hours, so I somehow needed to get over this fast and go back to living life the way He intended it. (This post doesn't have anything to do with religion, I'm just using this specific memory as an example, so if you don't share the same faith as me, please still keep reading! I promise I'm not going to preach religion to you!)
Meanwhile, the priest began his homily, in which he proceeded to talk for the next 15 minutes about how he was going to give up chocolate and French fries because junk food consumes way too much of his life, and he needs to refrain from indulgence because gluttony is a sin, and how he hoped he'd be able to continue restricting these things long after Lent. I was honestly a little bit shocked at how heavily his homily revolved around food, how he addressed the congregation as if it was a natural assumption that food was a common weakness and something we all were going to give up.
This specific moment may stick out more in my mind because it was two years ago that a Lent resolution to give up packaged foods led to me almost dying and dedicating several months to trying to claw my way back to health, but I've recently noticed this intense food shame all around. If you haven't read my story yet, I encourage you to do so, but the Clifnotes version is that I gave up processed foods for Lent one year, which led to me unintentionally undereating and losing some weight, which caused my body to go into starvation mode and messed up my metabolism and digestive system so that when I went back to eating "normally," I just continued to lose weight. I was diagnosed with an Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified; weight loss caused by insufficient intake but without the mental aspects of intentional restriction. I feel incredibly grateful that I didn't have the mental illness of a traditional eating disorder, because I don't know how I would have coped with the constant message that food is bad.
I don't know if it is an American thing, or a first-world country thing, or just a human thing, but somehow it seems so deeply engrained in us that food has some sort of moral value. I think I subscribed to this belief just as much as anyone for most of my life. To be honest, I never really cared that much about my body image as a teenager. I didn't wear makeup, I hated working out, I once went to school with a giant knot in the back of my head for nearly two weeks because I couldn't seem to get it out. At times I was self-conscious about my height; I was the tallest kid in class throughout elementary school and then suddenly the shortest when I got to high school. But I truly can't remember ever looking in a mirror or at a picture of myself and thinking I looked chubby, or fat, or needed to lose weight. And yet I know that I made jokes about being fat, or saying that I ate way too much sugar or what have you, not because I believed it but because that's just what everyone did. That's what you were expected to do to fit in. Still, diet culture in general really wasn't something I gave much thought to. I knew I was healthy, I ate what I wanted when I wanted, and I didn't care much beyond that.
Now I notice it much more. A lot of times, actually, it's because I don't know how to respond when people make those kinds of comments to me. When a family member says, "Ohmygosh I can't stop eating," my instinctive reaction would be to say "I know, me either!" But obviously now, I have to be non-stop eating, and most days I'm forcing myself to eat far past the point of comfort, so so that would be a weird response. But of course I'm not going to say "Yeah, you're right, you've been eating way too much," because A, I've never thought that about them, and B, that would be an incredibly rude thing to say! So what am I supposed to respond? Or I'd bake a tray of cookies for a club meeting or class potluck and be met with echoes of "I can't take those home, I'm so bad that I'll eat them all" or "The last thing I need is more junk food, I'm trying to lose five pounds before Christmas" when offering the leftovers to friends. Of course in my head eating too much is way better than not eating enough, but how do you just casually say something like this that seems so contrary to what everyone else seems to believe?
Okay, Aspen, so what's you're point? You've babbled on a lot but I still have no idea what you're actually writing about, you might be thinking. Don't worry, I'm getting there! My point is that in my opinion, and please know that I am stating this simply as my opinion and not as fact, we have reached a dangerous point in our society where food restriction has become not just normalized, but praised.
I don't want to deny that obesity is on the rise in our country, or that there are people who's health is truly in danger because of their eating habits. Sometimes lifestyle changes are necessary in order to protect oneself from health risks, which certainly in some instances could mean a diet. I think that it is important to take care of your body and give it everything it needs, including healthy and nutritious foods, exercise, etc. We should be educated to know that there is a difference between a carrot stick and a chocolate éclair.
The problem, I think, is that we are told that a carrot stick is healthier than a chocolate éclair, and that if we choose the éclair over the carrots, our bodies won't function optimally. But that's where the story stops. Nobody thinks to mention that if you always choose the carrots, you're body isn't going to function optimally, either.
From early on, this idea that we must be cautious around food is repeated almost unconsciously to children. In elementary we had to watch a video during our "Growing and Changing" unit that was all about healthy eating. I don't recall all the specifics of the video, but I remember there was a part where it told us that we were probably eating too large of portions of our food and suggested that next time we poured ourselves a bowl of cereal, we should then pour it out into measuring cups to see how our serving compared to the suggested serving size on the box. (I can't remember if I did this or not, but I'm pretty sure I didn't because earlier that year we were also told to plug our sinks while we got ready for bed and measure how much water we used, and my parents were not happy with the gigantic mess that made!) In high school a teacher told my class to download the My Fitness Pal app and start keeping track of everything we were eating to make sure we were getting enough protein. Luckily, I didn't have a phone yet, but I'm pretty sure everyone else did.
What a ridiculous thing to tell kids to do! Warning after warning is given about not eating too much or not eating too unhealthy, but then when somebody develops an eating disorder suddenly everyone wonders what went wrong. I don't think anyone who is sharing this narrative is intentionally trying to promote diet culture, I think it's just that there is such a lack of conversation around unhealthy eating in the opposite direction that it's rarely even considered. The media is constantly churning out statistics about the newest food that's going to kill us all, tips for getting in shape, and advertisements for the next great diet program, that it's no question controlling how one eats seems like an expectation.
It's interesting to me that I feel like eating disorders are so stigmatized and judged in our society, and yet the culture we live in suggests that, for the general population, controlling food intake is not only advisable but admirable. Fad diets that cut out entire food groups or label foods with values are not just a way to manage weight but a way to connect with people, to fit in, to participate in society. Counting steps and tracking exercise has become almost like a competition. I'm pretty sure that early humans didn't analyze how many calories they burned before allowing themselves to eat, or set time limits on when they were and were not allowed to eat. They just ate when they needed fuel.
I'm not saying that all of these things are inherently bad. I am sure that, for some people, certain diets or routines truly make them feel good. I just think it's worrisome that these habits are so normalized that we may not recognize the harm they are doing.
So what is the harm? I think it's two fold, maybe three. First of all, I think it's a little bit sad. I am often overwhelmed by the volume and frequency at which I currently have to eat, but even I still know that food can be fun! You guys, ice cream is really one of the greatest inventions ever! The protein bars that are packed full of sugar are waaayyyy tastier than the ones without. Sure, eating ripe blueberries makes me happy, but so does eating a warm blueberry muffin. Food is fuel, but it can also be tradition, a way to bond, a way to celebrate. So it makes me a little bit sad when I hear people talking about, for example, how much they used to love eating XYZ but they "can't" have it anymore. If, say, chocolate donuts are someone's favorite food in the world, doesn't it seem a little bit sad that they might never, ever eat a chocolate donut again in their lives just because it doesn't fit with their idea of "healthy?" Obviously if they are lactose intolerant or Celiac or something then it's a different story, but otherwise, in my opinion (and again, it's just my opinion, I'm not trying to invalidate anyone else's feelings on the subject), the happiness that this person will get from allowing themselves a donut sometimes is far more valuable than achieving some sort of idealized eating habits.
Besides it being sad, diet culture can certainly be dangerous, and my hypothesis is that it's even affecting the health of people who don't realize it. There's this really fascinating study that was done in the 1940s called the Minnesota Starvation Experiment in which a group of men were put through a 24-week starvation period, and their behaviors, bodily responses, and subsequent weight recovery studied. (I'll include some resources at the bottom of this blog to learn more about the experiment that I highly recommend you take the time to look at if you're at all curious about the human body's relationship with hunger.) One of the findings of this study was that the men reported a sudden obsession with food during the period of starvation. Even though many had a lack of physical hunger, a lot found themselves constantly thinking about food and developing interests in food-related topics such as cooking that they hadn't had in the past. The biological cause of this, as I understand it, is that when the body is in an energy deficit, it is trying to save as much energy as it can, and sending physical hunger cues requires a lot of energy. So instead, a person's brain takes over and increases their drive towards food-seeking behaviors, because mental hunger cues take significantly less energy to produce.
As I've gotten older and out into the world more, I'm surprised by how many people seem to be hyper-focused on food. From my perspective, there are a lot of people trying to follow a certain diet or lifestyle who spend copious amounts of time planning what they are going to eat every day, calculating their nutrient intake, analyzing the "value" of food before they decide whether or not to eat it. Of course, we all think about food sometimes, and there are occasions where meal planning or paying attention to the nutritional content of your food is necessary. However, I do wonder if for some people the "enjoyment" of constantly meal planning, gathering recipes, watching influencer videos, reading up on tips, and getting together with other dieters is really their bodies telling them they are hungry. I am very confident that it is possible for somebody to be undernourished while not being clinically "underweight", and that is one reason why I worry that diet culture is dangerous.
Furthermore, the conversation surrounding balanced eating, obesity, diets, and so many other things related to restricting or controlling food intake continues to rise, while the conversation surrounding disordered eating doesn't seem to be keeping up. Meanwhile, the prevalence of eating disorders has more than doubled just in my lifetime. I am a chronic information gatherer, so throughout my health journey I have done a lot of research on the nutritional rehabilitation and weight restoration process, and much of the resources available are in the context of eating disorders. I have observed that there is severe stigma in society regarding eating disorders. Sufferers are often stereotyped as attention-seeking, self-destructive, and body-obsessed. I am ashamed to say that I pretty much bought into these stereotypes until I started learning more about eating disorders.
Because of the assumptions made about eating disorders, I think there's sort of this belief that it's that person's fault, or their problem, if they develop the disease. That society has no responsibility to protect its members from eating disorders, because they are a choice. Now, I am fully of the belief that there is a balance. As I said earlier, I think that the values of things like nutritious foods and physical activity are important to educate the population about. While it's true and unfortunate that these might be triggering for some people, censorship to the extent that completely avoiding upsetting anyone is pretty much impossible. Additionally, I recognize that eating disorders stem from a variety of causes, and we can't solely blame diet culture.
That being said, more consideration into how the food narrative is affecting eating disorders is necessary. I always hear people talking about how social media and photoshopped pictures of models and beauty standards are causing people to want to lose weight and thus developing eating disorders, but I've seen a lot of stories surrounding eating disorders caused by a person just trying to "eat healthy." When anyone, not just young people, is constantly hearing how sugar is going to give them cancer or saturated fat is going to give them a heart attack or hot dogs are going to kill them, who wouldn't try to cut back on these seemingly dangerous things? Or, when weight watchers and keto and intermittent fasting seem like standard ways of eating, can we blame people for thinking that's how they have to eat to fit in?
There is another really fascinating paper I learned about while doing research called "The Adapted to Flee Famine Hypothesis." Again, I will include the link to this at the bottom of the post, and I hope you'll take the time to learn more about it, but I'll do my best to explain it here. This theory, which has significant scientific backing, suggests that in the time of early humans, people reacted differently to famine. Most people's bodies, when food was scarce, would recognize that the person was starving and go into "panic mode," shutting down and conserving energy. Of course, though, in a depleted environment, this reaction was not necessarily sustainable, because the only way to stay alive would be to find food. However, some people developed an adaptation that allowed them to ignore their hunger and increased their drive for movement, essentially denying that the body was starving and instead driving the person to leave the depleted area and put their energy towards seeking food. It is believed that these people would seek out new and food-rich environments for the rest of the tribe, so the denial of hunger was essential to keep the body going until this was achieved.
The theory goes on to suggest that the symptoms of modern-day anorexia specifically are evolved adaptive mechanisms of these early foragers. When any person enters a period of famine, the body believes that food is not available, even if the brain logically knows it is. So, when a genetically susceptible individual is starving, it makes sense that the person is literally afraid of food, because their primal instinct is that stopping for food when there isn't any means death. This hypothesis is also observed in animals; studies done on pigs and rats observed that their responses to starvation were an increased refusal of food and/or a tendency to run themselves to death.
There are many other genetic and biological factors that can help explain why some people develop eating disorders, but I think the Adapted to Flee Famine Hypothesis is one good example to help show that eating disorders are not a choice but the result of genetic predisposition and biological factors. This points out why diet culture needs to be taken into consideration in the context of eating disorders just as much as the role of body image, social media, etc. are. When kids, teens, and anyone are constantly hearing warnings that if they eat too many sweets or fast food, they are at risk of becoming obese or developing a whole slew of scary-sounding diseases when they're older, who wouldn't want to practice optimal eating habits to sustain a long and healthy life? But the truth is that most of these "optimal" eating habits aren't really optimal at all, and the brain responds to hunger in different ways. Some people's hunger increases until they can't sustain the energy deficit anymore (this explains the phenomenon of "yo-yo" dieting: the body becomes so hungry under a diet that it drives the person to make up for the lost energy by increasing appetite), my body responded by adopting energy-saving mechanisms that prevented me from feeling hunger, such as decreasing leptin (which signals hunger cues) and slowing my digestive system, some people's bodies become quite literally afraid of food.
So we have to make sure that along with education about the importance of eating fruits and vegetables, we are not neglecting the importance of eating enough. Why is there speech after book after documentary about the dangers of sugar or fat or obesity, but seemingly nothing about the dangers of malnutrition. Our standard of "healthy" eating can't mean undereating. I so wish that I would have had some kind of warning before I decided to give up processed foods for Lent two years ago. I believed it would be challenging, a good exercise to help me grow in my faith, but I never even considered that it could have physical effects. I knew nothing about how little it takes for the body to go into starvation mode. I don't think many people understand how quickly malnutrition can become dangerous. Before I went through it, I would have imagined that only people in less developed countries with no access to food or people who literally didn't eat anything could be in danger of dying from it. When I was suddenly told that I needed to go to the hospital and wasn't even well enough to walk across campus because I could just keel over at any moment, it was an absolute shock. Just the day before I was eating cookies and ice cream and Starbucks hot chocolate.
I guess my whole point to this is just to be careful and take care of themselves. It sets off alarm bells in my head every time I hear someone, whether its a priest or an influencer or a teacher, preaching about controlling food. It makes me sad when I see people denying themselves food when they want it or beating themselves up for eating "poorly," or even dedicating tons of time to analyzing food, because being forced to basically put my life on hold for food the past year and a half has shown me how miserable it is to have to revolve around eating. If eating a Reese's Cup is going to make you happy, I think you deserve to be happy, so just eat it. I know it's easier said than done, but I sometimes want to tell people to imagine themselves on the other side. Instead of feeling guilty for eating a bag of gummy bears with refined sugar, imagine being in the hospital for nutritional rehabilitation and having the worst stomachache of your life but being told that you have to eat a bag of gummy bears or else you might die. There are times when eating an apple is taking care of your body, but there are times when eating a brownie is too. I still consider myself lucky, because I truly don't know how I would have gotten through this if I also had the psychological aspects of an eating disorder, and I have a lot of respect and admiration for the people who do have these diseases and are able to overcome them. I never want anyone to have to go through what I went through, or worse, so I really just want to draw some awareness to the less-talked about side of "healthy" eating.
Okay, I think that's all I have to say about that :) Thank you for reading my long-winded and probably nonsensical blog, but I do hope you took something away from it. And now I hope you will go eat some candy! (And while you're doing it, listen to our "Eat Dessert First" podcast and then tell us what your opinions are on sweet vs sour candy)
Minnesota Starvation Experiment: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/10/hunger
Adapted to Flee Famine Hypothesis: https://www.adaptedtofamine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/guisinger-an-pr-2003.pdf
Comments