On May 6th it’s not just time to get down to the polling station (if you’re in the UK, that is). Set a reminder in your diaries and break out your blue ribbon because it’s also International No Diet Day.
The first INDD, in 1992, was organised by Mary Evans Young – a former eating disorder sufferer and campaigner who wanted to promote size acceptance and was horrified by the lengths women and girls were going to in order to lose weight.
Since then, it’s been celebrated in countries all over the world, run by the International No Diet Coalition, an organisation which comprises over 500 groups promoting self-esteem, eating disorders awareness, health at any size and positive body image.
In 1992, Mary Evans Young highlighted one story she’d heard, of a young woman committing suicide because she was unhappy with her size, which just happened to be the dress size of the average woman.
That was almost 20 years ago – and as we all know, the obsession with body shape, weight and looking ‘perfect’ has become more prominent, more damaging and more extreme with the passing of every year.
Every so often now we see new research detailing the stories of very young girls who long to lose weight and despise the way their bodies look, despite the fact they’ve only just started school. We see the documentaries about eating disorders and ‘extreme’ weight loss surgery. As women, we get specially targeted on sites like Facebook by companies wanting us to try their miracle weight loss solutions. And the US diet industry rakes in an astonishing $40 billion each year.
If you’ve successfully avoided the magazines and television shows which encourage us to feel guilty about enjoying food, there’s still no escape because you definitely can’t get away from our diet-obsessed culture in the workplace. One thing I always notice about my office’s fridge is the way it’s usually packed full with branded diet foods and milkshakes, tubs of salad leaves and celery sticks. As the days get longer, the one thing you can guarantee women will be talking about is ‘losing weight for the summer’.
But why? As people such as blogger Kate Harding of Shapely Prose have long pointed out, weight is not, in most cases, a health problem. In this great post which outlines her beliefs, Kate explains that poor nutrition causes health problems. A sedentary lifestyle causes health problems. But they cause health problems for people at every size. Blinded by an obsession with weight loss and denying ourselves calories (or fat, or carbs), our fatphobic culture treats overweight people with disgust and equates ‘being healthy’ and ‘looking good’ with being thin.
Some of the goals of INDD include:
- Doubt the idea of one "right" body shape.
- Raise awareness to weight discrimination, size bias and fatphobia.
- Declare a free day from diets and obsessions to body weight.
- Present the facts about the diet industry, emphasizing the inefficacy of commercial diets.
- Show how diets perpetuate violence against women.
- Honour the victims of eating disorders and weight-loss surgeries.
How can you celebrate on May 6th? If you’re already organising your own event, some great ideas for things to do are detailed at this INDD site. But if it’s something you’re thinking about for yourself, how about pledging to look after and respect your body? Taking steps towards accepting yourself for the way you are and stopping comparing yourself to what you see in the media? Eating when you’re hungry rather than denying yourself food?
Many of us have issues of shame and guilt surrounding eating, whether these come in the form of thinking of ourselves as ‘naughty’ for eating a chocolate bar - or more serious problems which have consumed our lives. And even if our own body image is pretty good, we all have friends who struggle.
When you consider how much the fixation on losing weight has gripped society, it’s vital that we focus on body acceptance and a healthy relationship with food as one route to a more fulfilled lifestyle.
Image via Daquella Manera’s Flickr