
Last Updated on January 31, 2025 | Published: January 31, 2025 published by Jenny Tomei
What is diet culture?
Diet culture is an idea of expectations around food or weight that are typically associated with the idea that thinness relates to health and it generates fear and negativity around being considered “fat”. It also promotes weight loss as attaining a higher social status. Diet culture may lead to foods being categorized as being considered to be “good” or “bad” food.
How can this mindset be dangerous?
This mindset is dangerous and can be severely damaging to a young person’s mental health and body image. Diet culture creates a model hierarchy of what body types are socially “acceptable”. Unfortunately, school diet culture is returning with a vengeance, or maybe it never disappeared
Does commenting on someone’s eating habits have a positive effect?
When society decides to label foods as “good” or “bad”, the food that we consume is then given too much influence on our lives, which can lead to the potential of an eating disorder developing. Restricting food intake can ultimately fail and continue to become something further affecting a young person’s mental, physical, and emotional well-being.
How can commenting on a person’s eating habits affect them?
A person experiencing people commenting on their weight can teach them to have concerns about their body such as things like, ‘Do I look okay?’, ‘Do I look different to my friends?’, ‘Why am I not skinny enough?’. This can lead to shame and unhappiness about appearance and create insecurity around eating in school around other pupils. This insecurity should be eliminated and it should be instilled in young people that these outlooks are unhelpful and
How do diet culture and fatphobia affect the school community?
Negative diet culture and fatphobia in schools can cause a young person to feel insecure about their diet and their appearance, which causes young people to feel unsafe or uncomfortable or not want to go to school at all. They may even begin to distance themselves from friends and family due to an increase in insecurity and anxiety.
What are the effects of this on an individual?
A student removing themselves from school due to this fear can affect both their mental health and academic capabilities. The school environment can further unintentionally lead to students experiencing damaging thoughts and feelings around their body image by emails or letters being sent home including “guidance” about what foods are or are not allowed.
What could schools implement into their policies instead of prohibiting foods?
Rather than prohibiting foods such as biscuits, crisps, or chocolate in schools, we should instead be encouraging young people to eat things that they enjoy but to eat everything in moderation. Of course except for a food or ingredient being banned in a school due to an allergy present in the school. We must remind students that their food options are not “good” or “bad”. This idea reinforces the mindset that food can be bad for you.
What other circumstances should schools be mindful of in students?
Schools also need to be mindful of disorders that may be affecting their students everyday lives, such as ARFID and cibophobia (an overwhelming fear of food that ultimately interferes with the individual’s daily life and social activities). Both of these disorders involve the restriction of food intake which may result in effects such as dehydration, malnutrition, and social isolation.
How can we ensure that young people are educated on the effects of diet culture?
When trying to educate students on fat shaming and the effects and ways to eliminate negative diet culture it is important to confront this issue with respect and understanding. It may be helpful to remind pupils of ideas such as what foods will keep them fueled and energized throughout the day or provide them with advice on what they could include in their lunches. By approaching the conversation this way, young people are reminded to make correct choices about what food they consume, not based on calorie intake but about what foods will make them feel good rather than necessarily ‘look good’.
How should the topic of diet culture be tackled in education?
When tackling this topic in schools it may be beneficial to approach it in a neutral way making sure that it is taught that no food is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but instead a diet that is balanced and provides many different positive impacts to a child. Young people should be reminded that no food is “bad” but that see food as a source of ‘fuel’ for their bodies in order to perform well at their studies or hobbies outside of school. It is also essential for helping regulate our mood and our hormones.
Why should students be taught that all bodies are good bodies?
Education on the fact that all bodies are good and, all bodies should be respected and celebrated no matter what they look like. This is very important and could be extremely beneficial for many. It is also crucial for schools to advocate for a zero-tolerance policy for any discrimination based on appearance or weight. Young people should be taught to love their bodies for what they provide for them, not how they appear.
What can schools do to help combat negative diet cultures?
Schools could assist in combating negative diet cultures in their schools by firstly, ensuring that their food menu meets the needs of your school community. If a child needs a free school meal and may for whatever reason feel embarrassed, in what way can these meals be provided to them discreetly and effectively to make them feel comfortable? Or if the school is aware that a child is not being provided to them outside of school, substitute this through the school meals.
Making water the main drink of choice in school and making it freely and easily accessible could also encourage students to drink water over alternative drinks, remembering that although these alternatives are not ‘bad’ they should be consumed in moderation.
How else can schools combat diet culture?
Schools could help in combating negative diet culture by creating a calm and safe environment for pupils to eat their lunch in, where students would not experience judgment or ridicule.
Also to create a space with people and friends that they feel comfortable with and members of staff who are there to maintain a positive and accepting area; while also ensuring that the school are maintaining a short and relaxed queue to collect food to reduce anxiety or pressure from other pupils.
Where can I find out more?
- Diet Culture: How it’s Harmful to Kids and What Educators can do to Help (nuton)
- How to talk to your kids about diet culture when they’re given “healthy eating” homework (within)
- Why You Should Never Comment on Someone’s Food Choices (omni)
Written by Amelia Whent