By Florentina-Mirela Cercel
If you have let go of all the stigmas that surround diet culture and loved yourself a little more during lockdown, then this article is for you!
So, what is diet culture?
The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) stated that the diet culture suggests that people are more or less good, moral, worthy based on their body size, as well as creating “thin privilege” – which makes thinness a gatekeeper for jobs, benefits, comfort and accommodation.
Should people really judge and categories other people if they’re fit enough to be acceptable in society? You already know the answer to that question. Is being thin really the goal? Sure, for some people it might be, but it might not be the same for others.
A famous anti-diet culture activist, Marilyn Wann, wrote: “The only thing anyone can diagnose by looking at a fat person is their own level of prejudice towards fat people. Unfortunately, weight stigmatization is just as much of an epidemic in healthcare as it is in society as a whole.”
More and more activists have surfaced over the past few years, breaking through the outdated stigma, and dragging down all the hateful comments towards having the perfect societal body.
Inspirational, model, writer, artist and activist Jameela Jamil founded in 2018 an online community named I Weigh, an ally-ship platform that was built to share ideas and stories to ultimately mobilize activism.
Through its content, I Weigh has committed to breaking down different types of stereotypes in the world as well as teaching other people how to use their time more practically and effectively to make an actual change, both in their community as well as worldwide.
I Weigh started as a social media post that slowly turned into a movement, and recently turned into a podcast that hosts different types of people, from performers to influencers.
In a recent episode of the podcast “Ask Jameela Anything” the guest speaker was Britteny Floyd-Mayo, and both the host and the guest sparked a wonderful conversation that focused on body positivity as well as mental health. The podcast gets a lot of letters through, asking Jameela as well as her guests questions that they could potentially give advice on, and one person has asked what advice she can receive as someone who is dealing with body positivity.
Britteny answered: “I’m sorry that you’re experiencing this and that you feel alone, but the good news is, feeling alone is just a feeling because you actually aren’t.
“You got two options when you don’t like something about your body: you can either fix that thing or own that thing.”
“What people love about you, isn’t actually your perfection, it’s your confidence. People are drawn to the energy; people are drawn to the confidence,” said Britteny.
“On the other end, which is to feel those feelings and be compassionate and remind yourself of what that body has done. Remind yourself that these stretch marks are proof of life.”
On body positivity and what it’s displayed on social media, bartender Adriana Serra, 30, has opened up to say that “Trying to have a model’s body isn’t healthy.” She adds that she doesn’t think that a perfect body exists.
“People on social media selling products are ridiculous but it helps sometimes because we convince ourselves that the product work so we feel better and we hate our body less, until we figure out that it isn’t working at all.”
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