The Real Reason You Can't Let Go Of Your Desire To Be Thin

If the desire to be thin doesn’t resonate with you while reading this article, you can replace it with the word “healthy”, because what I’m about to share applies to both. That’s because, both the desire to be thin and the desire to be healthy, while they may appear to have good intentions in the way of health, actually have far more to do with health itself.

The pursuit of thinness and health are also rooted in the desire to belong, to be accepted, to be liked, to be desirable – to be loved.

In this post, I’m going to share why that is (including where it all started), how it has been perpetuated throughout the generations and what you can do to exit the endless pursuit of thinness and start embracing the body you’re in.

Why Everyone Is Obsessed With Thinness

We live in a “thin is best” culture. In this culture (as in, diet culture), it’s believed that those who live in thin bodies are morally superior, have more self-control and are healthier than those who live in fat bodies. It’s a known fact that thin people receive better treatment in society than someone in a fatter body. Already, it’s clear why the pursuit of thinness (and fear of fatness, or fatphobia) is prevalent amongst society – and I’m going to give you a glimpse of why that is.

And before we continue, this isn’t meant to be perceived as a roast on people living in thinner bodies (I love y’all), but an emphasis on the extreme inequality and weight stigmatization that those in fatter, larger bodies are recipients of, and how these differentiating views came to be.

The Roots of Diet Culture and Fatphobia

It’s both maddening and fascinating to explore the roots of diet culture, especially once you realized how much of it is rooted in racism, sexism and oppression as a whole.

Once you look into the roots of diet culture (as in, where and how this “diet culture” and “thin is best” culture came to be), you’re able to see how much of it is a social construct and how we’ve been made into the marionette puppets of diet culture’s show.

The demonization of fatness dates back to the 1850s. It was then, that moderation and balance were deemed to be a “virtue” and any form of “excess” was frowned upon. There were also some notable people of their time who helped to popularize these beliefs.

Our dear pal Hippocrates popularized the belief that fatness was a disease. Sylvester Graham advocated for the denial of pleasure, emphasized the importance of self-control and promoted “reason” over emotion. His invention of the graham cracker (hence, Sylvester Graham) was actually created to stop sexual urges and desire (aka “denial of pleasure”) as he believed that eating meat and fat increased lust, and was extremely anti-refined white flour and favoured unsifted wheat flour instead (aka the graham cracker). And yes, I do apologize if that fact gets in the way of you enjoying your next s’more.

But, already you can see how many of these ideas continue to exist today at the core of diet culture, dieting and “health”. Oh, except “health” is sneaky because it will tell you that you have 100% permission to enjoy treats “guilt-free” providing there’s no gluten, dairy or sugar in sight (and I’m not proud to admit, but will own up to it, that this is a narrative I’ve perpetuated in the past when I was primarily a Holistic Nutritionist, that you may actually find back in my blog archives).

Diet Culture as a Social Construct

This is an interesting one! In World War I, international food shortages became a reality. As an act to conserve food, the Food Administration developed the slogan “Victory Over Ourselves” as a reminder that self-discipline around food was a moral imperative that would ensure the survival of the republic.

With that, came the idea that fatness was a sign of “moral failure”. If you happened to be fat, you were frowned upon [read: oppressed] for not being able to control your inner appetite (ummm … your biological, physical, innate cue and basic need).

Now, we live in a time, where food shortages are still a reality in far too many areas of the world, but in places, such as first world countries, where shortages aren’t as prevalent, we’re seeing this same narrative continue that was born over 100 years ago. “You’re in a fat body? You must have no self-control”, is the assumption, which is far from the truth. Not to mention, self-control is a myth when talking about human beings with physiological needs, but that’s a blog post for another day.

Another diet culture-rooted social construct that bleeds into today is around clothing. Before the 1820s, it was the norm to have clothing custom made to fit you. Then, as of the 1820s when textile and clothing production became mechanized, readymade clothes in standardized sizes took over the market.

Convenient? Yes. But not for the people who, as a result, find themselves excluded from mainstream clothing stores (and society as a whole) and have to go out of their way to go to a plus-size store and cope with the cultural shame that comes with it, or in many cases, not have access to comfortable fitting clothing at all.

If you’ve found yourself in this position described in the previous paragraph, know that the problem is not you. You were not made to fit clothing. Clothing was meant to be made to fit YOU!

Diet Culture is a Form of Oppression & Racism

Diet culture was also born as an act of racism. From 1850 - 1900, the percentage of Americans living in cities nearly doubled. More people moving to cities meant there were less jobs available.

The white middle class were looking for ways to assert and maintain their dominant position to the new immigrants so they could claim the jobs. They noticed body size to be a key differentiator in comparison to immigrants. From there, “thinness” became a mark of higher social status and fatness was marked as “savagery”.

And that narrative continues today …

Diet Culture as a Form of Sexism

Oof, okay – are you ready to get mad? Diet Culture was also born as a tool to keep women playing small. Naomi Wolf talks about this in her book “The Beauty Myth”, but the whole idea was that, if women were too preoccupied with finding ways to shrink themselves and meeting a standardized beauty ideal, they wouldn’t have the time or energy to shake things up, smash the patriarchy or exercise their political power in the world. I mean, how can you while running on an empty stomach?

Yep. Get ANGRY at this one!

Leaving The Pursuit of Thinness Behind & Embracing Your Body Now

This is just a quick glimpse of where the need to be thin (which, people are quick to assume and classify as “healthy” these days) began. Why we continue to perpetuate it today? Well, without this knowledge and education, we don’t know any better.

When these teachings are passed on through the generations and then come out of the mouths of your parents into your ears as a child, specifically during prime brain-development years, you don’t question it – you take that as 100% fact. And because it comes out of the mouths of your parents, who are your primary love sources, who at that point in life, are critical to your survival, your drive to perform and over-deliver on their teachings is alive and well. I talk more about the relationship you have with your parents/caregivers plays into your desiree to be thin, healthy and “perfect” in this Fill Your Cup Podcast episode.

In any case, thinness as a form of superiority and a key marker of health is a complete social construct and fabrication. It is NOT true or fact. Can someone still be thin and healthy? Sure.

But we can’t simply look at someone in a thin body and assume anything about their state of health; just like we can’t do so with someone in a fat body.

Intuitive Eating is an incredible antidote to straying from diet culture and leaving the pursuit of a specific body ideal or body weight behind so you can finally stop fighting against the body you’re in and cultivate true acceptance and contentment in your body.

If you’re interested in one-on-one support in this area, including learning the tactical strategies that I share with my clients to overcome this, you can learn more about my one-on-one coaching program, The Intuitive Way For Eating, over here. If you want to receive more information about intuitive eating and be the first to be notified when enrolment opens, I highly recommend that you get on the waitlist over here.

The research in this article is derived from Christy Harrison’s “Anti-Diet”.