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Becoming Anchored S1E4: Diet Culture as Seasons Change · Becoming Anchored

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Hey guys.
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Welcome back to the Becoming a Group Podcast.
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This is episode four.
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We're so glad that you're here.
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If you are back with us, welcome back.
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If you're new, welcome, welcome.
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We are really getting in the groove with this podcast and we're just
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loving sharing with you guys our life and our therapy knowledge
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and sparking curiosity with y'all.
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So, yeah, I'm Lauren Jackson.
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And I am Laura Deneen.
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Welcome.
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Yeah.
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We're two therapists in the Brentwood Tennessee area.
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We are in a group private practice.
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We work with eating disorders, grief, anxiety, depression-like transition.
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I.
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Everything in between, all through the lifespan.
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We adore our work and we are really falling in love with this platform as
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well to kind of expand where we get to share, share that work a little bit.
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So, yeah.
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Welcome.
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And here's episode four.
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Yeah.
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And so when we originally started this Becoming Anchored podcast, we
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wanted it to be a time, first and foremost, where we can share about
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our lived experiences as humans.
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And then we get to also share a little bit about the wisdom that
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we have from being therapists.
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And so we are really just here to do life with y'all.
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We really wanted this to be conversational and authentic and so.
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We're here to share about our experiences, both as a human and then as a therapist.
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So that's really the purpose of the Becoming Anchored podcast.
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We're gonna be giving y'all homework at the end of each episode, along with
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an affirmation for you to take with you
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a quick disclaimer.
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As always, this is not intended for therapy.
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By any means, the intention of this podcast is for
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informational purposes only.
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If you feel like you could benefit from therapy after listening to
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content, please feel free to either reach out to us if you're local
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or find something local to you.
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Today we are going to be talking about diet culture, particularly as we are
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about to go through a seasonal change.
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So I read a post somewhere and it was like, happy 400 seventy-fifth day of
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January, which I don't know if you feel that way, Lauren, but we've had quite
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a bit of weather here in Nashville from snow to rain, and it's just been,
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the snow was fun for like the first three days, but then it just was cold.
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And so anyway, I'm really excited about spring and summer coming.
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But with that, we acknowledge that.
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There's also an opportunity for more diet culture in our lives.
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And so here at Anchored we treat a lot of disordered eating,
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eating disorders, and even people that just wanna talk about their
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relationship with food or their body.
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So they may not have an eating disorder, but they want to improve their
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relationship with food and their bodies.
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They're ready to really be at peace with both of those things.
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And so we thought it might be helpful just to.
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Talk through diet culture and we hope that this can be pertinent whether or not
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you're listening during a seasonal change.
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Because I think this can hopefully be applicable no
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matter what time of year it is.
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But yeah, the summer months are coming and so I know with that comes more opportunity
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for diet culture messaging to show up.
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Mm-Hmm.
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When you think about diet culture, Lauren, what.
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I'm just curious, your take on this, like what is, are the
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first few words or phrases or things that come to mind for you?
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When I think of diet culture, like the, I'm a very like image person, so I, I, I
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learn best by like seeing, and I Processed best by like, kind of having images that.
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Help me express what is going on.
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And so the first, like the image that comes to mind when I think
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of diet culture is like a monster.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So anyways, yeah, diet culture for me is really anything that is sold
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to you to try and convince you that.
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Who you are right now, where you're at right now, what you look like right now,
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what you weigh right now isn't good enough for the sake of making money like that.
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That is what diet culture feels like.
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Just a big marketing kind of scheme, if you will.
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And then within that, like that's maybe like a kind of big umbrella.
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And then within that, you know, there are just all kinds of messages and messaging
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that that diet culture spews at us.
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That again, continues with that narrative of where you're at right
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now, who you are right now, what you look like right now, what size you are,
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what shape you are, what you weigh.
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Is it good enough?
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Yeah, and it's interesting when I hear either I'm not good enough or
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something's not good enough, I hear like.
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Flavors of shame in that.
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So yeah, you know, just that, that implied message or explicit.
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So I talk to clients about both those two types of messaging.
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So implied is like, maybe it's not said out loud, so it's an implicit message,
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but you feel something is kind of off and it makes you feel a certain way.
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That can be an implied message versus more overt, explicit, said, out loud messaging.
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Diet culture is everywhere.
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Like Lauren said, it's just this idea that.
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Certain bodies are better than others, that there's something wrong with you
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or that you can always be in the process of trying to improve yourself or change
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something about the way you look.
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You guys have, might have heard of this, but the idea of like the thin
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ideal, so like putting a certain body elevated kind of on like a
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pedestal diet culture is also.
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Present when people face discrimination because of their bodies.
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So, you know, whether it's weight discrimination or fat phobia,
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diet culture is everywhere.
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I mean, I literally was in the grocery store for, to grab something quickly
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recently and already saw like a magazine for like, summer is coming.
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This actress lost.
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So X number of pounds and you know, I mean, it's in your face.
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Everywhere.
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It can be from seeing a magazine on in the checkout line to hearing your Uncle
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Joe talk about what new diet they're on and how maybe you should start that too.
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I mean, if you start to think about where it is in your life, it's truly everywhere.
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And for people that are trying to work on their relationships to food and trying
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to cultivate a more peaceful relationship with food and or their bodies, that
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can be really tricky to navigate.
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Mm-Hmm.
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Just this kind of implosion of messaging that feels Mm-Hmm.
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Never ending.
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So
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diet culture can, like Laura's saying, is always kind of in our phase, is
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pushed a lot in a lot of different areas and platforms, if you will.
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And it's also very sneaky and.
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And over the years has kind of taken on new names and has kind of morphed into
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some different looking packaging to, to make it seem like it's less harmful.
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Which for, for, you know, those of us who have high radar to diet culture
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don't buy into that and want to educate.
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People on the, the, that the sneakiness of it and that sneaky piece of diet
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culture can show up a lot in just kind of the everyday conversations we have with
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people and what maybe sound like kind of harmless comments that are made and.
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I think one of the, one of our hopes and purposes of this episode today and just
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kinda the content we wanna share with you guys and our lived experiences with
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this is to help to help you all kind of filter and discern and, and identify
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maybe even some of the more sneaky aspects of how diet culture shows up.
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Just kind of day to day and those conversations and the
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things we hear from people at the store, at the wherever we're at.
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This, this showed up for me not too long ago, you know, coming into the
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new year and then like we're talking about now that the season change going
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to spring and summer can elicit a.
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A big diet culture response of like getting beach body ready and
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kind of detoxing from the holiday, all the holiday food and right.
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Like those kinds of words are some of the sneaky ways that,
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that diet culture is less.
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Presented.
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And so anyways, back to my story.
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I was, I was in A, I was, I have like a little workout class and it
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was before the class had started, before the instructor came in.
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And there were some other ladies kinda standing near me.
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I was stretching,
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kind of just.
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Grounding myself,
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if you will.
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And this was not too long after Christmas.
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This was kind of early January, and I heard these two women talking.
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I wasn't, I certainly wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but they were just right there
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and I could just hear what I were saying.
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And one of the women, and, and, well, I'll get to this point in a
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second, but one of the women, she.
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Made some kind of comment about, I still have some Christmas to
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shut off or something like that.
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It was like language along those lines.
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And I, I had a bit of a reaction to it for a few different reasons,
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and I, I'll share those reasons.
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But, but my reaction, it was, it was less of like a, a grounded
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response and more of like.
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A reactive response.
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If I'm being like, just totally honest with you guys, I like had a pretty big
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eye roll and kind of like a pretty big, like, because I wanted them to hear
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me, like I wanted to make an impact and what, how functional that was.
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I don't know.
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But again, just being open, the reaction I had and then they went on and to,
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they talked about something else and.
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All the cookies and they're just there.
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And so you eat 'em all.
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And just again, pretty covert diet-cultury messaging that cookies are bad and
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too many is a bad thing and makes this bad thing happen and all of that.
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And so I had another big eye roll and then the class started
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and I was like, thank God.
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So that's just an example of like.
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How it just is there just all the time there and, yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And I think a couple of reasons why I had a response like that is because
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a, I go to these little classes a few times a week because they are
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just, it's, it's, it's self-care.
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For me, it's a time when I can step out of my house.
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I, it's a, it's a way that I found that I.
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Enjoy moving my body.
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There have been other scenes in my life where I've moved my body in a way that
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I didn't love, but I made myself do it anyways, and that was unhealthy for me.
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And so finding, being intentional about finding a way of moving my body that
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feels joyful, that feels invigorating, that feels good to me, has been.
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Really, really important in just my life journey.
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And, and so I was, I was, I was trying to get into this mindset of like, me
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time, self-care, being mindful, and then this like nonsense is happening in the
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peanut gallery and I'm like, come on.
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Right?
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So that was just annoying, like, you're messing up my vibe over here.
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These two women were very thin women.
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And that just felt unjust to me.
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Something about that felt unfair.
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And so I think the, those couple of reasons is what elicited
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my reaction and my response.
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And so that's part of what we're wanting to like, explore and be curious
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with you guys today about is okay, identifying diet culture, particularly
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the sneakiness of diet culture.
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And then.
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What all we need around around that.
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When it does show up for us, what do we, what are we feeling?
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What do we need?
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What support do we need?
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What do we do?
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I probably, I maybe could have done something differently.
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I did go home and share it with my husband, which is really helpful.
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And he just laughed and rolled his eyes and, you know and so that was
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just helpful to say it out loud.
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But that was just like a pretty recent experience I had.
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And I knew that this, we were gonna do an episode on, on diet
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culture, particularly like just in the new year and going into spring.
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And I was like, oh, this is gonna be a perfect example.
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Yeah.
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And I think you told me about it last week too.
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So yeah.
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Yeah.
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I mean, thank you for sharing and unfortunately, this kind of
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thing is just so common, right?
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And so, yeah.
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I mean, I can totally understand like you're busy and you
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wanted that space just to.
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Be in your kind of own little self-care bubble.
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So I totally get, I mean, it sounds like your response was frustration and
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maybe underneath that was some anger.
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Right?
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And just validating that that is an appropriate response to diet culture.
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Right.
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So if we think about the, the emotion itself of anger, I've had to really
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work on my relationship to anger, just like giving myself permission to.
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To feel it in a way that is healthy and like I'm able to
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like ride that emotional wave.
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And so I am here for it.
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And I'm glad that you let yourself feel that anger
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because I think it's so healthy.
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And then you did something about it, right?
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Like you told me about it, you told your husband about it.
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But yeah, if you think about what, what information that anger gives you, right?
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It's like you mentioned the word unjust, right?
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So something about this feels unjust or.
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You're crossing a boundary or when I think of anger, it's like, okay, is
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there something that needs to change?
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Right?
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So if I'm angry at someone, do I need to have a conversation with them?
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Or do I, you know, do I need to speak to the instructor at this class?
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And you know, I'm not saying that you need to do that, but it's like
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it informs us of what action state, what action steps we can take.
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And so I think sometimes with diet culture, it can feel like so much.
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I think a normal response too is shutting down to that, but remembering that we have
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agency in that and that anger can actually create agency for us to make changes.
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Totally.
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And I have to remember that, I have to remember that too because I'm like, oh
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my gosh, like tackling diet culture is a huge task, but every conversation that we
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have, every person that we kind of share about what diet culture is, is another.
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Formative moment towards a better culture and a better world that
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we're leaving for our children.
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Right.
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So I think sometimes I can be like, oh my gosh, like what is the point
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of trying to tackle diet culture?
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But yeah, I mean that anger can help guide us towards totally tackling
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this like beast that diet culture is back to your monster metaphor.
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Like I think of it like a beast, a monster.
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But yeah, I mean, like Lauren said, there's like so much advertising.
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It's, it is.
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A, a lot.
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And there's nothing wrong with making money, but making money
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off of people's insecurities is what diet culture does, right.
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And which is like, just like mind boggling to me.
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And so, yeah, I mean, as the seasons change, I know that a lot of our clients
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feel pressure to, to look a certain way.
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And so we're just here to say it's okay for you to opt out of that.
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But with that, like Lauren said, identifying what you need, so.
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I know we have a body image group starting soon.
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You know, so can you join a local group where you can talk about what's hard
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about the spring and summer months especially, or diet culture in general?
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Do you have your safe people that like, are like-minded and get it that
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you can return to after you have a negative experience with diet culture?
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That would be the my first recommendation.
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And then of course, a therapist and dietitian if that's available to you.
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You know, people that you can decide, I don't know what, what boundaries you need
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to set, whether it's with harmful people in your life or colleagues or friends
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that maybe are not in the same space in terms of working, you know, in their
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relationship with food or their bodies.
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But there's lots of different things that we can do to support ourselves,
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especially when the messages feel strong.
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Anything coming to mind for you?
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No, I was
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just curious if you've had a recent experience at all with diet
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culture, like encountering anything?
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Yeah.
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I mean,
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oh my
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gosh.
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I know you had missions at the grocery store, like seeing magazines,
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which, yeah, but I mean that's like every day all the time,
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right?
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Yeah.
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And like we can become a little bit numb to it, but it's like still problematic.
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Like I forget that I live in this bubble of like.
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Colleagues and friends who are like very much in the anti-diet space.
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And it, it can feel like I was talking about before, disheartening to try to
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like tackle it, but there's something about the magazines in the grocery
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store that just really makes me angry.
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I'm not sure what it is, but I mean, I think it's just the content of like, Hey,
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I'm checking out my food and then I, I don't know, but it just really bothers me.
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Yeah, I mean we were at a birthday party recently, so of course lots of kids'
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birthday parties and, one of the, the women there, her, I think her daughter
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was asking for a cookie and she was like, no, that's too much sugar and it could
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cause cancer or something like that.
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And I did the eye roll thing too.
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And I don't know these people.
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I, I, I think there's lots of different options around
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how we can handle it, right?
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Like.
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And I'm, I'm still thinking through what that's going to look like
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as Marianne gets older, right?
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Like, I don't love that she hears that now and she's not yet talking.
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I don't think she can fully digest like what that means.
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So I took the route of processing with my husband in the car and then, you know,
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I can get support from you from other people in my life that get it around this.
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Cookie supposedly causing cancer.
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That's a whole nother like episode, but Sure.
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Yeah.
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I mean, my reaction was one of just anger.
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I mean, if you think about a kid's birthday party, right?
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We're there to celebrate that little one's like precious life and it's just
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like you're, my first thought was like, okay, person, you're, you're ignorant
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and you're kind of ruining the moment.
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And your precious child.
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Is so vulnerable to that.
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Right?
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So if you think about like the amount of fear that's in that statement alone.
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So sugar causes cancer.
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If I'm a little child, like how do you think that that impacts me?
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Right?
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So I think sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that children
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are adults and they're not, and that they can think through things in a
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rational adult-like way when their sweet little brains are just not developed.
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And so that makes me angry too, is right like.
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This little girl like just wanted a cookie.
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And for the record, they were delicious.
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I had a couple.
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But it's like, okay, first of all, you don't like, you don't know that, that
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that's not actually factual information.
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You're saying something from someone that you found online and, and
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you're robbing this the moment in this birthday party that's supposed
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to be one of joy and celebration.
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And, and you're making it about fear and anxiety, and you're also making
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the assumption that your daughter knows how to cope with that type of statement
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when they just like totally don't.
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Yeah.
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So it's like so
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multifaceted, like so many like things happening internally when one silly
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little statement is made and one of the themes that I'm like hearing as we're
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both sharing some of our experiences.
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Is this theme of anger, like there's something that, and that word unjust
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keeps coming to mind, which as I'm, as, I'm just kind of putting some
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of my thoughts together around this.
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I feel like two, one of two things happens, happens when diet culture
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is in the, in the mix, whether it's a commercial or a magazine or a
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conversation that has, is being had.
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I feel like if we're kind of in that anti-diet space like you and I are and
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the profession we're in, or that's just like the place you're at in your life.
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It, we feel anger, like we feel, we feel angry and we, we feel
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a sense of like, what do I do?
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Like how do I change this?
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Or maybe, which I've been here or we maybe are, are.
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Perhaps, well, maybe three different things happen so that, or we're
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maybe still in kinda this vulnerable place of like perhaps internalizing
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it and like, oh, is this true?
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Like, do I need to do something different?
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Am I wrong?
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Am I, is, is what I'm doing bad?
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Or maybe we're, we're fully immersed in diet culture and, and we're on board and
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we agree and none of those things are.
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Wrong or bad or whatever.
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I think it can just be helpful to know where we kind of land when it comes to
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how, how we do respond or internalize or engage with the, the diet culture talk
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or language or whatever that's happening.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And I think, I think we have options in that moment, right?
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Like, and we're not, we're not against people that are on diets.
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I.
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Like, we just wanna throw that out there.
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And we're not, we're against diet culture, right?
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And so Lauren and I are more aligned in terms of what we
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believe than maybe somebody who's in the thick of diet culture.
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We see that as a mechanism of avoidance for an emotional state
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that's happening internally, right?
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But we're not against the people.
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We are against diet culture, right?
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And so I think that's an important delineation to make.
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And then, yeah, I mean, we have options in those moments.
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At that birthday party I had worked a long week.
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It was my weekend.
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I didn't really have the capacity to address it.
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I most likely will not see this person again.
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And so they're not in my everyday life.
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I have done quite a bit of therapy around diet culture and how I want
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to show up when it's presented or in my face or whatever, and I
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chose not to respond, but that that was what I needed in that moment.
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I think I certainly have worked with clients that.
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You know, want to respond and want to assert themselves.
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And that's one way that they're working through their own recovery
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from living in a diet culture world.
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And I a hundred percent support them with that too.
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And I have certainly done that at times.
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And I think Lauren, you've even been there in moments when I've, I say it
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going toe to toe, but where I've gone a little bit more toe to toe with, with
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people in my life that maybe don't.
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Agree with all the, you know, health at every size and whatever, food
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freedom in the ways that I do.
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And so I certainly have done that.
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And neither response is good or bad.
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It's really more about what you need in that moment.
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But yeah, I mean, there's so much more we could say.
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I mean, as the seasons change, there's just times of vulnerability I feel
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like, that are, that are maybe amped up, if you will, throughout the year.
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And I know that's one of them.
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So we just really wanted to address it today.
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So just to give y'all some homework and just to, you know, real
25:07
really quick before I give y'all homework, we will probably continue
25:10
talking about this because there's a lot more that we could say.
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This is really just like a small little tidbit of information.
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If you haven't really heard about the concept of diet culture, we talk a lot
25:22
about it in blog posts on our website.
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There's certainly lots of wonderful resources that we can
25:26
put in the show notes around.
25:29
Starting your journey to tackling diet culture.
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But yeah, y'all's homework is twofold.
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So number one, I want you to think about the ways in which diet
25:39
culture shows up in your life.
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So like we talked about, maybe ways that are a little bit more obvious,
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and then ways that are less obvious, so more sneaky, like Lauren referenced.
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But think about how it shows up.
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That could be a conversation that you had.
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It could be a magazine, it could be.
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A TV show you watched, whatever.
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And then I want you to think about how you're going to respond to diet culture
26:00
showing up and, and what your options are.
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So this is, I think one way that we can move through some of our emotions about
26:08
diet culture is really giving ourselves options in terms of how we respond.
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So that's your homework from today's episode.
26:15
Lauren has an affirmation for y'all.
26:17
Yeah, so like
26:18
Laura said, we have a lot of blog posts on our website addressing diet
26:23
culture amongst many, many other topics.
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But I wanted to share a little quote from one of our most recent
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blog posts on opting out of diet culture in 2024, which is.
26:36
Quite relevant, right?
26:37
But actually, so our wonderful Laura wrote this, wrote this
26:40
blog post, so go check it out.
26:42
But the affirmation that she leaves us in this blog post says, I find
26:45
strength in community and support recognizing that I'm not alone in
26:49
my journey towards self-acceptance.
26:51
So community support and you're not alone, feel very timely in
26:58
this discussion about bi culture.
27:01
Yeah, thanks for being here on the Becoming Anchored podcast.
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We will see you all next time.
27:06
Bye guys.