By: Taylor Ashley (she/her) RP, CCTP-II
Starting in 1992, International No Diet Day was established as a way to promote body acceptance, celebrate body diversity, and bring attention to society’s unhealthy obsession with diet culture and thinness. The idea that thinness is an accurate indication of health has led us to participate in extreme measures to meet this societal expectation. But instead of creating ‘healthier’ people, it has perpetuated unhealthy behaviors and relationships with food and our bodies; and if we are truly aiming for ‘health’ as we claim, isn’t this the opposite of what we want to achieve?
An influencer @michelleleman recently spoke about self-esteem and health. She noted that for people to want to take care of themselves they need to believe they are worth caring for. We do not encourage people to have a healthy relationship with their bodies through shame and criticism (how diet culture makes money), but instead by focusing on the individual as a human and bringing attention to worth outside their body. The last time you thought about the people in your life and why you value them, did their bodies ever make the list of reasons?
International No Diet Day promotes the discussion about lifestyle, well-being, and acceptance and aims to take the focus off aesthetics and shame. If we bring awareness to how prominent conversations about food, bodies, working out, and the latest FAD diet are in our day-to-day interactions then we can work on changing this pattern.
