Why Fatphobia, Body Shaming, and Worshipping Thinness is Killing Us

How Diet Culture Messages About Cleanses, Detoxes, and Healthcare Can Backfire: Part 2

Recently, I’ve been raising awareness on the caveats of placing excessive attention on “clean eating” and “purifying” the body. Specifically, I’ve been exploring how diet culture messages are getting mixed into these wellness practices causing harm to our health.

Unfortunately, many are not aware of the dangers that can result with how we are approaching “correct eating” and the pitfalls of advocating for expensive protocols to optimize the body’s natural elimination processes. These include:

• The economic strain on manufacturers to remove chemicals in consumer goods, resulting in higher prices
• An increase in health anxiety in the economically disadvantaged who cannot afford costly detoxifying protocols
• An increase in food morality and healthism
• The fueling of eating disorders

In the last video blog, I dived deeper into the connection between food morality, eating disorders, and diet culture. To review, the topics covered were:

• How diet culture damages our relationship to our bodies and food
• How purifying our life can lead to an unhealthy preoccupation with “clean” eating
• How obsession with dietary cleanliness can result in a deadly mental health disorder
• The link between “food addiction” and restrictive dieting practices
• How to be healthy in a toxic world without giving into diet culture

Now, I want to highlight more of the detrimental impacts of diet culture’s emphasis on food purity and idealizing slim body shapes over all other aspects of wellness. Our controversial subjects today will be:

• The damage of body size stigma
• The harm of shaming people into better health
• How fatphobia leads to suboptimal healthcare
• An overlooked lurking variable in “obesity” research
• Why society’s obsession with thinness is killing us
• A true picture of health

As always, all the references, links, and past blogs and articles will be linked within this post and in the resource section.

Also, as a disclaimer, I will be using the word “fat” as an adjective that describes those in larger bodies. This is because it is now considered a neutral, descriptive word for body size, equal to how “thin” depicts smaller bodies. “Obesity” is considered derogatory by some people.

So, let’s get started.

 

Body Size Stigma and “Fatphobia”

Diet culture and resulting food morality is not only fueling eating disorders and disordered eating patterns, it’s also leading to an increase in weight stigma and “fatphobia.” Unfortunately, our culture feels it is widely acceptable to treat those in larger bodies as inferior. As a result, many people have become enslaved to their scales and worry about what they eat.

According to Texas A&M sociology professor, Joan Wolf:

“There’s almost a universal agreement that fat is bad,” said Wolf, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology. “We have a whole health industry that is set up around making people thinner. We have a self-help industry with scientists and doctors who are devoted to the message that everybody should lose weight. Because we think it’s all under our control, we judge people who are fat, and we think that they are lazy — that their character is somehow represented by the fact that they carry more body weight.”

Concerningly, many people believe that shaming and “pointing out the obvious” is a helpful strategy to motivate weight loss in fat people. Often, these cruel words are spewed by privileged celebrities or influencers who have never inhabited a larger body. They have no idea of what it’s like to navigate the world as such.

Just as aversive strategies to discipline children are not effective in producing desired outcomes, shaming people to lose weight or stick to restrictive lifestyle protocols isn’t either. Evidence shows that using punitive parental strategies on children backfire, leading to increased risks of mental, emotional, and physical disorders. Similarly, the belief held by many doctors that fat people need to lose weight as the priority for their overall health outcomes has become an ineffective bullying, scapegoat diagnostic strategy in medicine. It leads to suboptimal healthcare and poorer health outcomes in those labeled as “obese” and “overweight.”

 

Scapegoating Weight as a Cause for Disease

Today, “obesity,” is now considered a disease itself based on the link between the size of one’s waistline and poor health. Unfortunately, the idea that body size is a strong cause of health results, verses a correlation, is quite popular and prevalent in the healthcare profession. It has led to a socially and medically acceptable form of stigmatization of many body physiques. (source, source, source, source, source, source, source) Rather than giving proper standard of care to all people, many people in bigger bodies are  viewed as “lazy” and “weak willed” by their physician.

Larger patients are told by their doctors to lose weight through diet and exercise to “treat” everything from arthritis to cancer. This is often the first priority of care without even evaluating for additional factors. (source, source) Yet, there are many reasons for body shape diversity, just as there are various causes to underlying disease processes.

Importantly, an individual’s health risks (and body size) are based on a variety of interrelated genetic, environmental, emotional, societal, and lifestyle factors. Furthermore, a specific body weight range is neither necessary, nor sufficient, to create most diseases. All bodies can become ill at any time.

All aspects of health should be considered in standard of care treatments. Yet, those who do not fall within the deemed “normal” weight range often do not have many of these areas fully addressed. As a result, they are receiving suboptimal care. (source, source, source, source)

Instead of digging deeper into causative factors of diseases and receiving the lifestyle or medical interventions given to those in smaller bodies, fat people are often prescribed excessively restrictive diets and heavy workouts to “fix” their “major health concern.” I properly don’t need to tell you this, but diagnosis and treatments based strictly on appearances have very dangerous consequences.

 

The Other “Lurking Variables” Hidden in the Science of “Obesity”

Besides suboptimal care contributing to the link between poor health outcomes and larger body size, there is another, more subtle, and impactful one. This is fatphobia itself.

Concerningly, the impacts of this form of body size prejudice are associated with negative changes in our physiology. Specifically, it leads to the same elevated inflammatory markers that are blamed on “obesity” itself. (source, source, source, source, source, source, source, source, source, source, source) Furthermore, this dishonored population is also at heightened risk for social and psychological harm and eating disordered behavior as a result of it. (source, source, source)

The shaming of larger bodies is one example of a hidden “lurking variable,” a factor not accounted for in associative studies, in “obesity” research. It needs to be addressed.

 

Societal Obsession with Thinness is Harming Everyone’s Health

Recently, I read an article that gave me goose bumps. The Science Daily article states:

Adolescents who perceive themselves as overweight are three times more likely to consider committing self-harm compared to those who do not, regardless of whether the person is objectively overweight, according to a new study.

This obsessive focus on food and body size for societal and medical acceptance is not helping the health of all people. It’s only fueling our mental health crisis, because eating disorders are the deadliest of all psychiatric illnesses.

Diet culture messages of food morality, clean eating, and worshiping the “thin ideal” is contributing to them. Even more concerning, much of the “healthy behavior” that is promoted by many health experts is actually classified as disordered eating by mental health experts.

 

Summing It All Up: Toward A True Picture of Health

As a naturopathic doctor and functional medicine practitioner, I do believe that food can be medicine. This is why I offer non-diet, personalized nutrition protocols based on the biochemical individuality of my clients. I also feel that supporting natural elimination processes is helpful for overall vitality. However, how this is approached is paramount.

Healthcare practitioners and influencers should not be demonizing health choices and shaming people for how they look. Although health experts should discuss how healthy eating and lifestyle is a part of the puzzle to better living, they should also make it clear that they are not the sole determinant of it or a moral compass of character.

Vitally, doctors need to provide the same care for all people in all body sizes. This is by assessing all root causes of diseases and offering the same treatment to everyone. For example, thin people and fat people with diabetes should be treated with insulin support, regardless of their weight.

Society and medicine’s focus needs to shift to a balanced viewpoint of well-being. Regardless of one’s body size today, we can all take steps to elevate our minds and life. This is through using integrative and holistic solutions to aid the body, mind, spirit, and heart to function at their best. These strategies are effective for all, regardless of body size. (Stay tuned, because I will be offering a program based on these concepts.)

Lastly, I want to plug essential oils as an ally to support the emotional upheaval of breaking free from diet culture. They can balance our mood as they aid our physiology from the stress of stigma and fatphobia.

What do you think? Please share your ideas in the comment section.

Thank you so much for taking the time to learn how to nourish and nurture your mind, body, heart, and soul.

Sending you many blessings.

 

Resources

• What Is a Full-body Detox? (Healthline)
• Do We Really Need to Cleanse and Detoxify in Our Chemical World? A HAES (Health at Every Size) and Naturopathic Perspective on Shielding the Body from Toxic Insults: Part I (My article with references)
• Living a Non-Toxic Lifestyle – A Final Summary on Naturopathic Detox and Cleansing (My article with references)
• Psst…The Dirty Little Secret That May Kill You! Is There Hope for a “Cleaner” Future? (My article on Natural Path with references)
• Why You Must be Vigilant and Not Rely on Companies, nor the Government, to Keep You Safe from Toxic Chemicals (My article on Natural Path with references)
• Resources for Living a Healthy, Non-Toxic Life for Better Mind-Body Balance: Greener Living with Clean Food, Safe Cosmetics, Chemical-Free Household Products, and Quality Water (My video blog with references)
• How Did Diet Culture Take Over Healthcare, the Fitness Industry, Nutrition, and Society? (My article with references)
• Is the United States Healthcare System Insane? (My article with references)
• How I Was Bamboozled into Blaming Food for Body Size- The Flaws in the “Food Addiction” Theory & Link to March 2019 Holistic and Integrative Medicine Top Reads (My article with references)
• The Dangers of Body Size Stigma and Food Shaming & How to Find Peace with Food and Focus on Health Without Obsessing on the Scale (My article with references)
• How Did Diet Culture Take Over Healthcare, the Fitness Industry, Nutrition, and Society (My article with references)
• The Dubious Practice of Detox (Harvard)
• Should You Do a Cleanse (UCLA)
• Effective Discipline to Raise Healthy Children (American Academy of Pediatrics)
• How Striving For the “Perfect Diet” Could Make You Anxious and Sick (My article with references)
• Are You a Food Addict? The Caveats to Food and Eating Addiction: Part III (My video blog with references)
• Fatphobia – What It Is and Why It’s a Problem (Texas A&M)
• When Teen Body Image Becomes a Deadly Perception (Science Daily)
• What is Diet Culture (Christie Harrison)
• What to Know About Diet Culture (Medical News Today)
• The Rise of Eating Disorders Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic (John Hopkins)
• Could Your “Healthy Diet” Be Classified as an Eating Disorder? Recognizing the Different Types of Eating Disorders (My video blog with references)
• Internalized Fat Phobia (Psychology Today)
• Effects of health at every size® interventions on health-related outcomes of people with overweight and obesity: a systematic review (Obesity Research. 2018.)
• Obesity, health at every size, and public health policy (American Journal of Public Health. 2014)
• My Six Favorite Essential Oils and Two Amazing Oils Blends for Supporting Holistic Heart Health (My video article with references)