How the Deprivation Cycle Impacts Your Clients’ Mental Health (Diet Culture Series | Part 3)

We’re finally here... Part 3. You made it.

We’ve already covered a lot, so let’s take a deep breath … 

Then do a quick recap of Parts 1 and 2.

In Part 1 I explained the game’s rules that are founded on the four Diet Culture Myths, how that shapes our expectations, and what our winning the game (or more likely losing) says about us. Navigating these rules helps us to feel secure in our place of belonging and avoid rejection. Losing the game (or even the threat of losing or the perception of losing) could be a source of anxiety and/or depression for your client. 

In Part 2 I gave a tiny glimpse into how high the stakes are for those who fail the Diet Culture game and the very real consequences that weight stigma imposes on people in larger bodies. Internalizing weight stigma could also be a cause of anxiety and or depression for your client.

Here, in Part 3, I’m going to explain one more foundational piece that you need to understand before you can really appreciate the connection between how trying to eat healthier could be causing (or exacerbating) your client’s anxiety and/or depression. 

This last piece is one major way that the game is rigged and it’s called the Deprivation Cycle. 

Remember Diet Culture’s Universal Truths?

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

And…

Bad (unhealthy/fat) people will have bad (unhealthy/fat) bodies because they make bad (unhealthy) choices.

The assumption being that our health and body size are a matter of personal responsibility and completely within our control. So if somebody isn’t thin, it’s by choice. Or by weakness. Some innate characteristic of inferiority. 

That’s why we expect ourselves to be able to eat perfectly healthy all the time. Or to burn more calories than we consume on a regular basis. We expect ourselves to be able to eat as little as possible for as long as possible. If we don’t, then it’s because we’re weak-willed. 

Internalized weight stigma has us believing that we just need to be more self-controlled. So we expect ourselves to be able to ignore our hunger. Denying it or tricking it with zero consequences. 

But that’s not how God made bodies to work. He actually built a fail safe mechanism into us so that we can’t do that. 

We call that failsafe response to deprivation The Deprivation Cycle. It’s the predictable physiological reaction that happens when we restrict our food. 

The cycle goes like this:

Restriction in order to follow the Food Rules and eat healthy

Binge

Feel shame for being so terrible and weak-willed

Greater Restriction to make up for our transgression and to make sure that we don’t break the Food Rules again

It acts like a pendulum. The greater the restriction, the greater binge. The more we deny our hunger, the more easily (quickly and forcibly) we eat past our fullness. 

It’s helpful to put it in terms of the Hunger Scale. On the ten-point Hunger Scale, a 1 is extremely, ravenously hungry while a 10 is incredibly, uncomfortably full. 

The Hunger Scale works like a gas tank gauge. And it is in a very real way our body’s gas tank. Without the fuel that we get from our food, we don’t have any energy. The further down the scale we get, the more empty our stomach is, the hungrier we are. 

If we eat when we’re around 3.5 to 4 on the scale, we can eat with intention. We aren’t too hungry to notice when we reach the point of satisfaction or a comfortable level of fullness. We can make the conscious choice to keep eating or to stop. 

But if we wait to eat until we’re 2 or 3 on the Hunger Scale, our body registers the state of emergency and jumps in to help us out. Our body’s priority is to get us to eat as many calories as possible, as quickly as possible. 

So where do we go? The most calorie dense, carbohydrate-rich and sugary foods we can find. That’s what we call a binge. And it’s what Diet Culture calls one of the most shameful things that we could do.

So we try harder. We double down on the Food Rules. We start a new diet. We bail on that dinner with friends. We make it a rule to not keep cheez-its in the house. We vow to do better. We sign back up for WW (formerly Weight Watchers).

Can you see how we’re set up for failure and primed to blame ourselves?

Now let’s get back to your client. 

How could trying to eat healthier be causing (or exacerbating) your client’s anxiety and/or depression?

In light of these three posts, maybe a better question is, “How could it not?”. 

This whole system chips away at our self esteem. We aren’t able to live up to the unrealistic “healthy eating” expectations. And we’re not actually in control of our weight.*

Internalized weight stigma has us distrusting and hating our bodies. If our body was different, we wouldn’t have to constantly struggle to eat healthier and our doctor might actually address our health issue instead of once again prescribing weight loss.

Even for the thin privileged, there is the ever-looming threat of gaining weight with age, pregnancy, illness or injury. Our bodies are always changing yet we expect ourselves to stay a certain size. Or at least be able to lose the weight if we try hard enough.

If that’s true, how could your client not end up feeling hopeless in these never ending cycles? Who wouldn’t despair?

But don’t take my word for it. Look for yourself. Over the next month, observe your clients. Listen for any talk around trying to eat healthier. Could all of this be hidden between the lines? 

Could their desire to eat healthier be their attempt to escape the weight stigma baked into our Diet Culture? Could their repeated failed attempts be causing, or exacerbating, their anxiety or depression?

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