There are so many ways that the Diet Framework we live within hinders us.

As individuals and as a society.

As families through generational cycles. 

As a Church distracted from our bigger purpose. 

Here I look at just three of the ways that the Diet Framework fortifies and reinforces itself by training us to sacrifice our agency and our individuality. 

How does it train us to make this sacrifice? By:

Disempowering Us

Detaching Us from our Emotions

Discouraging Our Differentiation and Individualization 

The existence of the Diet Framework relies on us not embracing our agency or individuality in these ways. 

If we recaptured these skills, and applied them in the area of our food and body, we’d pretty quickly see the toll that the Diet Framework takes on us. And we’d be much less inclined to submit ourselves to it. 

Here’s how this post is going to go.

I’m going to first give a super brief overview of the Diet Framework. 

Then I’ll go through and explain how the Diet Framework reinforces itself at your client’s expense in each of these three ways. 

I’ll finish off by highlighting what you, as a Mental Health Professional, can do to counter the Diet Framework and support your clients in these areas.

The Diet Framework

The Diet Framework is exceedingly simple. There are three parts to it. 

These three parts interact in a very specific way. 

It’s as easy as 1,2,3.

It’s not hard to see the road map that it lays out for us.

That was easy. 

So how does this simple framework disempower us?

It falsely identifies an extremely limited area of influence. The only way that we can influence the system is through our food and exercise choices. 

That’s it. We’re told that everything relies on that and everything stems from that.

Body size and health status are simply the natural consequence of our food and exercise choices - either good or bad. They are the direct result. A fixed outcome. 

After all, Diet Culture’s universal truth that everybody knows is that: 

Good (healthy/thin) people have good (healthy/thin) bodies, because they make good (healthy) choices.

Which is why Diet Culture happily grants belonging and access to resources to those good (healthy/thin) people who have earned it. And conversely, withholds resources and belonging, from those bad (unhealthy/fat) people who need to try harder. 

Again, another fixed outcome.

The Diet Framework denies that there is any other way to influence one’s health. It allows for only an extremely narrow definition of health while neglecting mental, emotional, relational and spiritual health altogether. 

It doesn’t leave room for any other alternative views on health. Nor for the option to not pursue, or not prize, health. It fails to acknowledge the right of all humans to belong in society and share in its resources, irrespective of their body size and/or their dogmatic conformity to an unrealistic “Thin Ideal”. 

It completely ignores the fact that so much of our weight, size and health are determined by our genetics and the social determinants of health that we have access to. It frames something so outside of our control, like our weight and health, as our personal responsibility.

So how does the Diet Framework detach us from our emotions?

The Diet Framework reinforces itself by framing our food and exercise choices as a simple matter of mental willpower. A righteous struggle of personal sacrifice triumphing over the sinful flesh and moral weakness. 

It establishes the expectation that we will suffer and sacrifice for our health. So our suffering doesn’t raise any red flags for us. How we feel about ourselves and our food is irrelevant. It’s the price we pay for “health”. 

Any emotions that could undermine the unshakable mental resolve necessary to dominate our hunger, and crush every single workout, will have to go. There’s no place for them here.

To be fair, it doesn’t try to detach us from all emotions. It does approve of some emotions. Namely the ones that keep us stuck in the Diet Framework and the Deprivation Cycle. 

Emotions like fear (of food, fat and ourselves), shame, guilt, regret (over food and exercise choices), resolve to do better the next time, hope and pride in the short temporary bouts of weight loss. 

These kinds of emotions are always encouraged.

All other emotions are demonized and generally lumped into the umbrella category of “emotional eating”. Which, conveniently, is what Diet Culture says is one of the most shameful things that we could do.

The Diet Framework’s Personal Responsibility narrative has us turning our anger in on ourselves. The anger that would otherwise alert us to our boundaries being violated. The infringement upon our body autonomy by the Food Rules. 

Instead, that anger gets turned into self-contempt. And we continue to beat ourselves up. We think to ourselves, “How can I be so weak-willed? How can I not get this one simple, core thing under control?”.

Diet Culture’s solution is to turn off our feelings and needs and recommit once again to stick to the Food Rules. Detaching us from our emotions.

How does the Diet Framework discourage differentiation and individualization?

The Diet Framework is predicated on the myth that all bodies could, and should, be thin bodies. In the incredibly offensive way of Diet Culture, it purports that within every fat body is hidden a thin body. Waiting to emerge. 

In doing so, it fails to acknowledge the God-designed diversity of body shape, size, height, metabolism, genes, ethnic and cultural heritage or expression or physiological factors affecting weight besides fat stores. 

Instead, it elevates a narrow, ethnocentric view of health and beauty as the gold standard. We call this the “Thin Ideal”.

Thin, white, young, conventionally attractive, fit, healthy and wealthy.

The idea is conformity. The more closely one can conform to the “Thin Ideal”, the more access to resources, social capital and belonging.  

That’s why Diet Culture, including the healthcare establishment, is comfortable throwing around arbitrary weight measurements and goals that can be applied to everybody. BMI, arbitrary goals of losing 3-5% of body weight, or “just ten pounds”, etc.

The message being that “thinner is always better”. It doesn’t matter what your body is now - your story, your family, your history of an eating disorder, your mental health, your connection to your body and unique identity - it’s about what you could become. 

Thinner.

What can you, as a Mental Health Professional, do about it?

So, what can you do with this information? How does knowing all of this help you better support your clients? 

Here are just a couple of ways.

Just Notice. You can look for these areas as you work with your client. How developed are these skills and characteristics in other areas of your client’s life?Are they empowered? Connected to their emotions? Comfortable differentiating and owning their individuality? How can your noticing inform your overall work with your client towards whatever their current goals are?

Make the Connection. Your client may have these skills in other areas, but may not be applying them to their relationship with their food, body and exercise. In which case, you may be just the right person who can draw that connection for your client. 

You may be able to help them reconnect with themselves and embrace their autonomy. 

Build Your Own Anti-Diet Framework. Does reading this make you want to learn more? Are you curious about the ways that the Diet Framework may be hurting your clients and how an Anti-Diet Framework could help? 

An Anti-Diet framework is the antidote to the toxic Diet Framework. Dramatically different and diametrically opposed, an Anti-Diet Framework is characterized by healing, empowerment and autonomy. 

It takes into account the entire unique person and amplifies who they are. It doesn’t diminish their uniqueness by trying to squeeze them into the smallest box possible. 

It’s based on how bodies actually work. It rejects the notion that the pursuit of health is a moral obligation. It doesn’t make health synonymous with weight, nor a barometer of our worth.  

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Want to go deeper?

Download the free “Becoming a Weight-Inclusive Provider” workbook for Mental Health Professionals.

Deepen your clinical skillset with weight-inclusive, anti-diet training for therapists. Learn more about these online trainings and see upcoming dates.