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International No Diet Day is Coming, What is it, and Ways to Embrace it.
International No Diet Day is coming up on May 6th! What is it, and what are some ways to embrace it, on the day and beyond?
International No Diet Day is approaching on May 6, 2022
The No-Diet Day movement began in 1992 by Mary Evans to bring awareness to the impacts of diet culture, and weight stigma in our society. The day aims to inspire healing our relationships with food and our body by redirecting our focus from dieting and physical appearance to appreciating our bodies more.
What is Diet Culture?
Diet culture is a term used to describe the belief that the best way to live is in a thin body. It's an environment where thinness is valued, and weight loss is seen as an admirable goal, while fatness is stigmatised and seen as a source of shame.
The pressure to be thin can be found in many places, like in movies, television shows, advertisements, books and magazines. The media often portrays thin people as more successful than people with larger bodies. Diet culture has been shown to negatively affect people's mental health because it can lead to restrictive dieting and disordered eating behaviours.
It's pretty heavy stuff but it's important that we grow awareness around the harms of diet culture.
What to Expect on No Diet Day
On No Diet Day, you'll likely see lots of social media posts on platforms like Instagram from advocates, celebrities, non profit groups, and nutrition and dietetic health professionals. Follow along and share any posts that resonate with you. Some great social media accounts with movers and shakers in this area include:
The Body Positive
The Body Positive is a non-profit organisation that is helping people overcome their body image-related challenges to leading happier fulfilling lives. They have great training workshops available throughout the year.
Evelyn Tribole
Evelyn is a Registered Dietitan and author of many books on Intuitive Eating which is about learning how to eat in a way that honors your body's needs and responds to its own internal signals.
Christy Harrison, RD
Christy is an anti-diet RD host of the Food Psych® Podcast and author of Anti-Diet.
What you can do to get involved in International No Diet Day
Here are some ways you can get involved too.
Reflect on your relationship with your Body, Food and Dieting
We've all been there, that no-carb diet, cutting sugar in the hope of weight loss, nitpicking at specific body parts we feel are problematic. It can be so consuming. But what if we could enjoy food free of feeling guilty or associating any good or bad labels with it? Recognising our value regardless of body shape or size. It is possible and will save a lot of time and heartache. Use this day to reflect on your relationship with yourself and how you could improve it.
Read More about Diet Culture and Other Related Topics
The problem with diet culture is rooted in the belief that weight is the most important health indicator. Weight stigma and fat-shaming have become so normalised in our society its hard to get away from.
There are some outstanding books and websites to learn more about topics like diet culture, weight stigma, body acceptance, and Intuitive Eating and more.
Pause and Say Thank You to your Body
Take a moment to think about all the ways your body tries to support you on a day to day basis. They alert us to danger with our fight-flight-freeze responses, trying to notify us when we're unwell, hungry or full. Our immune systems come to our rescue when we are sick. The human body is an intricate, fantastic thing.
Avoid Engaging in Diet and Negative Body Talk
Let's challenge ourselves to a day where we don't have conversations about diets, weight loss, the latest workout, or hating particular parts of our bodies. Instead, let's turn our attention to the things and people we love, favourite past-times, hobbies, new adventures and projects. Anything that's not related to body shape or size.
We hope you have an enjoyable (and diet-free) no diet day.
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