Diet Culture & Daughters

I didn’t diet leading up to my wedding and honestly? That was a big deal. 

You see, when I got married for the first time (awks) all I ate was soup for a month leading up to it. As soon as the “milestone” passed, I let go. I stopped caring because I didn’t have a reason to care. Welcome to another yo-yo. 

But this time it was different. In a lot of ways. 

This time, I just lived and existed in my balanced healthy lifestyle and didn’t diet leading up, so there was nothing to come “out” of. I just get to keep living. 

Our honeymoon has been filled with intuitive eating (especially on a time change) and lots of walking. But I’m not adding up calories, I’m not calculating how many we burned with all the walking either. I’m trusting my body here and listening. 

But we live in a world with diet culture. Where you are told some foods are bad and some foods are good, without ever knowing you or your body. Yet still having something to “say”. I read a magazine cover last week at the grocery store checkout that said “lose 22lbs in one week”. My dad said, “what, by having a baby?” 🤷🏼‍♀️ I wish my daughters didn’t have to read things like that (and I say daughters because I’ve yet to see my son marketed to in quite the same way). I’ve walked away from the messaging behind diet culture. I’ve walked into healthy relationships with food and my body. I’ve discovered the meaning of self love.

Self love has taught me that my health is more than a size or a number. It’s having good relationships, it’s unfollowing that one account, it’s eating that slice of pizza, it’s moving and exercising for my body’s sake. 

Self love has helped me see that diet culture is preying on us. Preying on those special occasions with reasons we need to be more by being less. 

Self love taught me that a healthy lifestyle is a long and winding road, and we’re best to hold hands and share in it together rather than to try and go it alone. 

Self love is an investment that increases in value, our value. 

Self love I hope is contagious enough to breed better conversations in children’s minds as they speak to themselves. ❤️

Because love has to be louder than all that noise.