Iva Krckoska – 13 year old
Diet culture and the toxic influence on humans
You wake up, and the first thing you do is go on your phone, specifically, social media. You see many models posing and posting their body or weight loss journey and what they eat in a day. That causes you guilt. You now don’t want to eat breakfast because you want to look like a model. That is diet culture. Diet culture causes depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem and it shouldn’t be something that you would like to believe in. Diet culture causes guilt and it includes no freedom. Diet culture is harmful and in my editorial, you will find out what are the reasons why it’s harmful. Diet culture causes eating disorders and eating disorders are deadly, and diet culture, society, and social media are to blame. As previously stated in the introduction one of the main reasons that diet culture is harmful is that it can lead to a full-blown eating disorder. Eating disorders are very harmful mental illnesses that not only ruin a person’s life, it rule a person’s life. There are multiple types of eating disorders (such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating nervosa, etc.). The symptoms all have one thing in common, a bad relationship with food. The percentage of eating disorders in the whole world population is 9%. It isn’t a large number, but imagine 9% of 8 billion people struggle with a bad relationship with food. Eating is an easy job but for these people, this isn’t an easy job. People with eating disorders don’t eat cake on their birthdays because of their extreme fear of guilty foods. Imagine a child less than 13 developing a long-term disorder because they use social media. That’s absurd. All eating disorders could last a lifetime but if treated correctly they could last up to a few years. That’s either a couple of years or your entire lifetime spent caring about an easy job such as eating. Not all eating disorders include eating healthy, for example, bulimia nervosa includes eating all kinds of foods but then purging so that that food doesn’t enter the body. All eating disorders include wanting to be at a healthy or underweight weight. All eating disorders are connected with wanting to be skinny and eating healthy so that you are skinny. Yes, diet culture is at fault here, but isn’t society at fault as well? Society encourages this type of behavior and most individuals with an eating disorder continue having an eating disorder just because of the society that they live in or the environment they are surrounded by. To demonstrate its lethality, research shows that eating disorders are the third most common chronic illness among adolescent females in the United States. (International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health, 2007). In 2022-2023, it is projected that around 416,300 people in the United States will have anorexia nervosa. Diet culture causes individuals to believe that some foods are bad and others are good. Some foods are guilt-free, and some are guilt foods according to diet culture. A child growing up has a high risk of being a victim of diet culture and developing an eating disorder or body dysmorphia because they use social media. Everyone uses social media but children could especially use it. Parents think “How could a child use social media if the age limit is strictly from 13 and up?” That would prevent younger children from being put at risk. Anyone, everywhere can lie about their age on social media just to gain access to it. Surely eating healthy does have benefits such as more energy, healthy hair, healthy nails, or even a longer lifespan. Being overweight is framed as a terrible thing and if you are overweight, according to diet culture, you have no control. If you are underweight or at a normal weight, you have control over your body and know how to take care of yourself. Overall, diet culture causes unrealistic expectations. Diet culture can also ruin your mental health. On social media, you can see all types of things. Everyone can post whatever they want, whenever they want. However, on social media, there are a lot of fake posts. Multiple studies have identified a substantial association between excessive social media use and an increased risk of sadness, anxiety, loneliness, self-harm, and thoughts of suicide. For example, A few days ago a post popped up on my Instagram saying that donuts are foods that are terrible for you and if you eat one you will feel guilt for the rest of the week when in reality if you eat donuts in moderation, you are guaranteed to feel happiness. Cravings are normal and shouldn’t feel guilty. Studies show that if you ignore your cravings you are likely to binge eat while answering your cravings increases happiness. Models pose however they want so they look skinnier and individuals will make themselves feel bad for not looking like that. In reality, everything on social media is unrealistic, clickbait, and fake but that is why some individuals struggle with body image. Diet culture also causes depression and low self-esteem. A lot of students cry for hours just because they don’t look like the models on Instagram. They put themself on diets just because they saw a post where a model looks impossibly skinny. That causes individuals to believe they are lazy and should work out to look like them. To sum up. Social media pressures and stresses students when they already have enough stress from assignments and other mental complications. A victim of diet culture’s unrealistic standards is myself. Growing up, I wasn’t overweight or fat, however, I was a dancer. And dancers have the most unrealistic standards out of all hobbies/sports. As far as I remember, I looked through social media and looked at models and said “I wish I looked like that”. However, I wasn’t even allowed on social media. I was only 12 years old, and the minimum provided age is 13 years old to access social media. That just proves that anyone can lie about their age whenever and however they want. Because of diet culture, I suffered for a long time with unrealistic standards. I would later dig myself into a big deeper hole. I tried out an application called MyFitnessPal. This app helped me track my calorie intake and macronutrient intake. I would focus on eating protein which would help me lose body fat. At the same time, I consumed foods such as tomatoes, rice cakes, cucumbers, etc. These foods have 10 to 0 calories per serving. My daily intake of calories would vary from 1200 to 1000 where the minimum for my age would be around 1800. I would be in a caloric deficit of more than 1000 calories per day. I lost weight, faster and more than the average weight loss. I lost around 10kg in 2 months. That was absurd. Something that boosted my unrealistic standards would be people’s encouragement after seeing my weight loss. I would get 10-20 messages a day congratulating my weight loss. In reality, I was struggling. I developed an eating disorder called Anorexia nervosa or/andARFID which is a restrictive food intake disorder. These are both fatal eating disorders. As with most eating disorders, my hair started falling out in extreme amounts. I had no appetite. I felt miserable. But I felt encouraged. I quickly lost more weight, 5kg more max. I lost my happiness. I was suffering silently. People still encouraged me. My spine was giving me goosebumps every time I saw it. It was a life-threatening situation. I was hospitalized. I gained weight back. I knew it was the yo-yo effect. An effect that happens when you lose weight and then gain it back. I didn’t gain all of it back. I gained some of it back. I looked almost perfect. However, I developed another eating disorder, and that is orthorexia nervosa which is an eating disorder where you refuse to consume unhealthy food. I ate only oatmeal, vegetables, fruits, or food that was high in protein. The thing is not most people know about this eating disorder. It is a common eating disorder when recovering from anorexia nervosa or ARFID. My schedule included counting calories (again) and eating foods high in protein. My mom stepped in. It was time to put a stop to this. She told me to delete MyFitnessPal. I stopped calorie tracking. I started eating all the food again. I looked and felt the happiest I had ever been. I am now a great student working towards becoming just like the person who saved her, my mom. On the whole, the cure for me was only my greatest, Mom. Another person who collaborated on my recovery journey was my sister. Both of them mean so much to me and I love them very much. Recent research shows that 9% of the world’s population struggles with eating disorders. This trend has reached such an increase that it is currently equal to the number of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. As much as 4% refer to anorexia, 20% of them end fatally. Anorexia usually starts in childhood, the peak is at 14 years old with predominance in girls. Anorexia is the leading cause of death among young people of all other mental disorders. It may be a loss of just a few kilos, but it is also the beginning of this disorder, which starts naively and takes a serious course. To recognize such behavior, look out for individuals not eating while others are eating or saying they aren’t hungry when they are starving. Look out for extreme exercising or obsessive body-checking. Remember, in some cases diet culture causes death. Diet culture needs to be stopped. An idea for preventing diet culture is to be more strict about the age restrictions on social media. There should be an additional sign-up page that teenagers access and there would be fewer posts about diet culture and eating disorders. When seeing an individual struggling with diet culture or eating disorders help them practice intuitive eating so that it doesn’t end fatally. Dieting for ages under 18 should be banned and if someone is dieting under 18 then they should be sent to a clinic for eating disorders so that they don’t end fatally. Parents shouldn’t encourage disordered behavior and should recognize when their child is struggling. If it becomes bad, delete their social media, you are going to them good. Scales should be thrown out. Ever since my mom threw out our scale at home, our home has been anti-dieting and we have been living our life to the fullest while enjoying food. Remember, diet culture is fatal and society and social media are to blame.