In the Company of Women
This past week, I spent time with my sister-in-law who was laid up with a broken leg. I cooked the meals (this week’s Seven Days of Eating was inspired and influenced by our evening meals), she provided good company and conversation. One evening, her neighbor, also a mom of young children, stopped by for a chat and we got onto the topic of the work of moving away from dieting.
All three of us shared stories of how the dieting mindset and pursuit of thinness had shown up in our adolescence and young adulthood. There was a common theme of how our relationships with food and body image were influenced by magazines, television shows, and our own mothers and sisters. It’s the norm to diet. It’s the exception to enter into our twenties having escaped the impact of diet culture.
Diet culture is everywhere. It shape-shifts, praising certain foods while villainizing others, only to change the edict on an almost day to day basis.
The three of us commiserated over the constant pressure, invitation, and lure of starting the next diet craze; especially at our age, in an effort to maintain function and health.
A couple of truth bombs that came up in our conversation:
When we restrict food or label certain foods as “off limits” a part of us eventually rebels by eating that food.
The only thing dieting can be counted on to help us lose is our sense of trust and connection with food and our body.
We start the next diet to help us feel safe, but end up feeling more preoccupied with threat than ever.
All-or-nothing thinking loses its appeal as we mature, but sometimes we don’t know any other way.
It’s easier to go against the norm, shift a paradigm, and walk away from the status quo with a supportive person or group of people.
Spending time with other women reminds me how much I need and have missed kinship with the feminine over the past year. Spending time with a friend who has lost the ability to fully care for herself reminds me of how self-care means very little in the absence of community care. Being in the presence of other women reminds me that through sharing our stories and witnessing the stories of others helps us become better versions of ourselves.
Connect. Support. Share. Become.
Are you missing connection and support from other women? Are you on a journey to heal your relationship with food and your body? Do you have a story to tell about how diet culture influenced who you are today?
I’m getting ready to launch a 4 week group with my friend and colleague Maria-Lourdes Aragon. The intention of this group is to offer space to step away from diet culture, build community, and find wellbeing in a new way. Click on this link to get added to the waitlist. More details coming soon!