Social pressure to be thin is a catch-22 for many women because most diets fail. A new book by Lotta Dann promotes health over deprivation.
While many are aware of the social pressure in our culture to drink alcohol, few recognise how deeply diet culture influences our everyday lives, too. Diet culture is everywhere, especially at this time of the year. “Over summer and up until Christmas, the marketing around dieting and bodies is really ramped up,” says Lotta Dann.
Best known for her work in sobriety advocacy, Dann has turned her attention to another social norm in her latest book, Mrs D is Not on a Diet.
“If you’re online, your algorithm works out your age and targets you with products for menopausal women or ‘dad bod’ solutions.” This kind of targeted messaging preys on body insecurities and perpetuates harmful narratives about the idealised thin body shape.
For those unfamiliar with the term, diet culture refers to beliefs that value thinness, appearance and body shape over health and wellbeing, often to the detriment of physical and mental health.
“Drinking culture and diet culture are two really embedded cultural roles that are hugely damaging, particularly to women,” says Dann. “And there is nothing more brave and empowering than abandoning both things.”
It may be a bold statement, but it’s grounded in her experience of rejecting these norms. Dann began drinking alcohol at 15 and continued until she was 39, when she realised the debilitating nature of her alcohol habit and took a “terrifying leap” into sobriety. Now sober for more than 12 years, she has written books and leads Living Sober, an online community of more than 17,000 supporting others on the same path.
In the new book, she shares insights into the extreme dieting world, her struggles and failures and the transformative shift that led her to discover the anti-diet community and reclaim a healthier relationship with food and her body.
Although weight-loss diets are widely considered a path to better health and happiness, numerous studies in the past 20 years have found 95% of weight-loss diets fail, with one- to two-thirds of the weight regained within a year and almost all regained within five years. Moreover, one- to two-thirds of dieters regain more weight than was lost.
These changes occur because the body perceives a weight-loss diet as unintentional starvation and initiates physiological changes to slow the body’s resting metabolic rate, and increase fat storage, appetite and food-seeking behaviours.
Not only do weight-loss diets not work, but also because diet culture perpetuates societal beliefs equating thinness with health and higher social status, widespread body dissatisfaction is created, particularly among women. This can lead to increased anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and disordered eating.
Weight stigma and discrimination compound these harms, and can affect women’s opportunities for education, employment and healthcare.
But a growing movement of non-diet practitioners and research have demonstrated that a holistic, non-diet approach to health and wellbeing produces longer-lasting benefits than weight-loss diets. Founded on principles such as intuitive eating and body neutrality, the non-diet approach challenges societal pressures and advocates for a healthier relationship with food and body image.
Intuitive eating encourages listening to your body’s hunger and fullness cues and eating for satisfaction. Body neutrality focuses on accepting your body as it is, regardless of size or appearance. It prioritises mental, emotional and physical wellbeing over looks and helps people break free from harmful cycles.
For Dann, rejecting diet culture is not about perfection but progress and self-compassion. Yes, she says, there are times when she feels “sad, isolated and full of shame – but I still feel really good about what I’m doing. It feels right.”
With weight loss no longer on the agenda, she has discovered a newfound joy in riding her e-bike and even going to the gym.
“I want to be moving, [though] I’m not naturally drawn to it, if I’m honest.
“But I feel so relieved that I don’t have to be worried about what I weigh for the rest of my life, so long as I’m moving and keeping strong.”
Mrs D is Not on a Diet, by Lotta Dann, (Allen & Unwin NZ, RRP $37.99), is out now.
