When You Choose Self-Hatred, Diet Culture Wins

Turns out, you don't have to swallow what you've been force-fed

process/product is a newsletter dedicated to sharing the the nitty-gritty of the creative process. As a subscriber, you will get bi-monthly creative prompts. The first few months, the prompts will be offered to all subscribers. But for the sake of facilitating an energetic exchange between you and me, bi-monthly prompts will become a paid subscriber perk by May.

After the update on how the last prompt went for me, you can scroll down to find the newest prompt. All subscribers will get the first half of the newsletter for free, but come May paid subscribers will be the sole recipients of the bi-weekly prompts

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Prompt #4: What would you let yourself do if weight wasn’t a factor?

I think a lot about a TikTok I once saw— I can’t remember it verbatim nor can I find it again, but it was a street interview. This person was asked,

“You can only choose one: The vacation of a lifetime in Greece or be skinny?”

Without even taking a breath, the person replied:

“Be skinny. Obviously I can’t be fat in Greece!”

I felt squeamish. The earnestness with which they were replying, the way in which they were laying their deepest insecurities bare. The way in which they were actively trying to apologize for their body, acknowledging that they were big and they did not want to be and that meant that they could not go or enjoy the trip of a lifetime. Then, all of the comments: praising and echoing and understanding that choice.

When I tried to find it again, all I could find were TikToks of strangers trying to lose weight in Greece or lose weight for their vacation in Greece.

Reader, I would choose Greece. I wouldn’t do nothing but pack a bag and check my passport’s expiration date to prepare. Because why do I have to lose body mass to enjoy the experience of a lifetime? Why am I supposed to look a certain way to experience and feel? My body is not an apology— my body is THE GIFT with which i get to experience this one, wild and precious life.

No one is safe from Diet Culture.

13 years ago, I was interviewed by Barbara Walters on The View about my eating disorder during 2012 Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Clearly, I know the hell of living in a body you hate, so much so that I was interviewed about it. Unfortunately, it was so long ago that the video has been taken off of the internet, probably to make space for things that ABC actually cares about.

I was a college student during the Obama-years, and I thought I could be the change in the media I wished to see.

I wanted to say:

YOU CAN HEAL FROM YOUR EATING DISORDER

YOU CAN ACHIEVE WEIGHT NEUTRALITY

YOU ARE NOT YOUR WEIGHT, YOU ARE WORTHY AT EVERY SIZE

IT ISN’T A TOXIC EXPECTATION TO WANT TO NOT ACTIVELY HATE YOURSELF

HEALTH IS POSSIBLE AT ANY SIZE, FOR REAL.

It was cute that I tried. It’s cute that I thought I was powerful enough to dismantle Diet Culture in one daytime segment.

The segment after mine? A man selling smoothie recipes “cookbook” for weight loss.

Can’t say that I didn’t try!

I didn’t change the world, but I did actively change mine. I chose to actively dedicate myself to my eating disorder recovery, and that meant more than just adhering to a meal plan: I committed myself to divesting from Diet Culture— no diet food, no more toxic expectations and ideals, no more weight-loss goals. No more punitive exercise regimes. I actively sought to re-define my own beauty standards— unfollowing anyone who made me feel bad about myself— and following bodies who looked different than mine. I stopped using other bodies as measuring sticks. Body positivity, which looked more like weight neutrality, led to me actively liking— and then LOVING— myself.

I knew that what was being sold to me was a false expectation. That my body IS a dynamic force in flux, always; composed mostly of water. My skin, the largest organ on my body. My body is not to be controlled. It is dynamic creature worthy of dignity and respect and care. I learned that to take care of my body meant feeding it nourishing foods, moving it often, and then resting when I felt fatigued. Ultimately, I came to truly believe that I had worth beyond what size my pants are. I know that I have worth beyond my weight.

But just as I thought I had a handle on dismantling my perceptions and expectations of Diet Culture: it mutated.

This newest iteration of Diet Culture BLOOMS— wellness influencers telling me how many steps I need to take, pilates is all I am supposed to do, disgusting green powder supplements that are supposed to replace meals, Ozempic and Manjaro and GLP-1’s that will melt off pounds with effort or healthy behavior modification, SOYLENT, warnings of high cortisol levels that create fear and raise cortisol levels, fetishizing dangerously thin celebrities (again). It was the same weight-based shaming and fear tactics, but hiding behind in different clothes.

No mention of the food deserts that many Americans live in. Or the subsidization of mono-cropping, which is leeching our soil of essential nutrients so that they can make Doritos and Fritos and Lays. The syrupy non-sugar drinks we all guzzle to attempt to stay awake long enough to work for wages that keep in lack. THAT WE ARE SICK BECAUSE OUR GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIZES WHAT KEEPS US SICK ( don’t even get me STARTED on healthcare, which will be quick to tell you everything wrong is because of your weight).

Diet Culture is back with a vengeance, and worse than ever.

It’s like the algorithm: it has learned your habits, learned what will keep you engaged. It will feed you the information required to get you spend your life force or money.

HOWEVER, I am here to say:

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO HATE YOUR BODY. HATING YOUR BODY IS A LEARNED BEHAVIOR THAT KEEPS YOU STUCK IN PLACE.

You weren’t born hating yourself. Someone may have said something when you were too young to know you were supposed to keep your guard up. You may have been placed on a diet before you could think for yourself. You may still be on a diet. Your television valorizes one type of body: white and dangerously lean. You may have stapled your stomach. You may have starved; you may be starving now. YOU MAY HAVE LOST THE WEIGHT AND STILL FEEL MISERABLE. You can’t help but notice the ways in which thin people get the things they want. So if you are thin, won’t you get what you want, too?

Here’s the thing: even when you get to your goal weight, even when you achieve the body of your dreams, this all still lives in your head. Turns out, getting the dream or revenge body isn’t what will solve your problems. Nor will it give you the courage to actively seek out your dreams.

All of this noise still lives in your head— it does not disappear as soon as the weight does. The things said to you when you were five or eight or fifteen or forty-three, the diets that failed, the celebrated bodies on our screens— Even if you live in a smaller body, the failed version of you still lives in your head.

It will never be enough— I should know. The lengths and depths I took myself to make me shudder. But I promise you, you don’t have to treat your body as the enemy. It’s you, my friend. Your body is yours.

This is the thing: You do not have to swallow what you have been force fed. You do not have to hate yourself or your body.

You can CHOOSE different.

It will not be easy, but I promise you: it is worth it. How free do you want to be?

Let’s go back to the Prompt: What would you let yourself do if weight wasn’t a factor?

Get pen/pencil and paper, and set a timer for 7 minutes. Speed write down a list of your wildest dreams. Sunbathing in Brazil? Eating croissants in Paris? Writing and publishing your memoir? Dating someone who you actively like?

Do not censor yourself.

What if you could go to Greece without losing a single pound and enjoy every fucking second of it?

Why have we internalized that we can’t do what we want until our body is in the exact form we have decided is correct?

I am sick to my stomach with the way in which Diet Culture has grown stronger, ever more insidious: hidden under the guise of health and aspiration.

Which is why I developed a four week virtual writing workshop to detonate the demons that live in our heads.

Alongside my friend and collaborator, Beck Liatt, LCSW and therapist, we have created the road map to your freedom.

If you would like to join, send me a message:

I have to tell you: I don’t think about my body much at all. Aside from trying to eat more fruits and vegetables, exercising, and resting, I fucking love how I look. The demons creep, but I know that I am a more lucrative consumer when I hate myself.

And I’m done handing over my ambition. I’m done being a consumer and I am ready to be an adventurer. Living out my greatest dreams and desires, not waiting for a number on the scale or a size of jean.

What if you let yourself be yourself today? How great that would be.

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We can choose to live differently.