How Would You Answer This Question?

This question popped up in one of my online groups.

I'll share my response in a minute.

First, let me say I live in a world where I see so much progress and change in the area of diet culture and weight bias that it's easy for me to be hopeful for our future culture in this area. Now and then, I have an experience that reminds me of how far we have to go.

The group this question was directed to is huge and filled with positive people working on self-improvement - people who are all about taking charge of your life and owning your power. You can imagine my dismay when I saw hundreds of answers looking like this.

- Cut out alcohol.

- Focus on diet. Cut out sugars and bad carbs.

- Health is wealth! Mind over matter!

- Discipline

- See food as fuel.

- The Complete Master Cleanse - also known as the lemonade diet

- Eat less. Exercise more.

- Fast.

- Burpees.

- Do a round of Whole 30

- Get mad.

- Keto

- Get at least 10,000 steps in a day and cut out the junk.

- Call Sono Bello for liposuction.

- Make decisions I really want/need to do that.

- Increase water intake.

- Portion control.

- Intermittent fasting

- 30 Day Shred and lots of water

- Probiotics

- Positive thoughts

- Stop ALL sugar.

- Come follow my healthy tips on my wellness page.

- 11 Day Shred

- Cry, then put my big girl pants on and find what works.

- (all in one suggestion) More water. Load up on veggies. Walk for at least an hour daily. Sweat daily, Pre and probiotics. Cut alcohol. 1500 calories a day.

- Detox

- (all in one post) Lemon water first thing daily, no bread, no sugar, don't eat after 6:00, follow a healthy plan, veggies (and more)

- No processed foods

- Exercise

- Buy Neora Fit

- Thrive

- Visualization, hydration, no sugar

And the list goes on...and on...and on. If I had a dollar for every time someone mentioned sugar, I could be planning a nice little weekend getaway. I hope you can clearly see through to the bottom line here.

We were nearly two hundred comments in by the time I saw this post, and not one person had even hinted at questioning the validity of the doctor's pronouncement. The deeply conditioned response was essentially, "Lose weight? Of course, the weight is the issue. Yes, Doctor, I'll do my best."

You might be able to guess my response. For the record, it was this.

"Likely find a new doctor. There's so much more to health than weight. I would be sure I had a doctor who understands that. Mandating a specific time period to drop a certain number of pounds is a strong statement that seems intended to frighten rather than empower." And yes, I edited myself for the sake of manners. The words in my head weren't as polite.

Out of almost four hundred responses, one person replied to my comment agreeing with it, two or three other people commented separately that they'd find a new doctor and one personal trainer stated the rate at which one can reasonably drop weight in a healthy manner. That's only about 2% who had any concern at all about the validity of such a request! Sad.

I've got to say one thing for diet culture: it's certainly done what it set out to do.

Of course, the question as presented to the group lacked vital information about why such a demand might be made. However, the point is that no one brought that up. They were all just immediately eager to share their diet tips.

That post and comment thread were like a cold bucket of water in the face reminding me that diet culture is alive and (un)well, and we have a lot of work to do. Let's do what we can to spread the word and free our people from the bonds of oppression! (Lol. Was that dramatic enough?)

Seriously though, thanks for being here and exposing yourself to new ideas. I appreciate you. Together, we can make a difference.

Go grow.

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