3 Sneaky Ways Diet Culture Shows Up at Work

...and what it might look like to push back against this and all oppressive systems.

Readers, I took a lot of extra care with this post, and I hope that you will, too, both for yourself as you engage with the content and with one another if you choose to comment. I have made an effort to link out to sources that are evidence-based and inclusive throughout. I also know that this topic is fraught for most of us, and so may not land well with folks who are not yet ready to let go of the (false) promises and hope that come with dieting. I want to welcome us all into this discomfort and also be clear about my own politics and what I bring to the table:

I come at this topic as someone who grew up with thin privilege, and while, like so many bodies, mine has grown outward and softened considerably as I age, I still, as a straight-sized woman (someone who does not typically require plus-sized clothing and who can shop at standard retail stores in most cases) stand in a relatively privileged position on this issue, even while I’m no longer thin. I have worked with registered dietitians and therapists on my own health and healing processes. But I also know that I, as an individual, and we, as a culture, have a long way to go in dismantling oppressive systems of all kinds, this one very much among them.

I’ve learned the most on this topic from those who live in fat bodies, Health at Every Size® practitioners, public health scientists, and those most deeply invested in unraveling our interconnected systems of oppression —where fatphobia is deeply bound up with anti-Blackness, colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism, and more. My scholarly expertise has allowed me to explore this area in some depth, and to teach a Medical Sociology course at the end of my academic career that examined diet culture and healthism as an extended case study. But as this academic and political area has only landed with me in the last five years or so, I still consider myself a novice to this topic. So let’s get curious and think more about it together.

Finally, it’s important, as always, for me to be clear that these perspectives are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or practices of my current or any previous employers.

I’ve gotten a number of new followers in the past week or two, so if you’re new here, welcome! Writing about the intersections of DEI, modern workplace culture, and leaving academia isn’t always so heavy, but this topic is one that has become important to me, and tends to be one that even those who care a lot about DEI and healthy workplace cultures don’t often stop to critically examine. I think this is particularly true in nonacademic spaces, as campuses often at least have some deliberate resources devoted to supporting students with eating disorders. (While not all diet culture leads to eating disorders, eating disorders are never helped by diet culture.)

So what is diet culture? I don’t believe there is a standard definition out there, but I like Christy Harrison’s framework, which defines diet culture as a system of beliefs that includes: equating thinness with moral virtue, promoting weight loss as a means to achieving health, needlessly categorizing foods as “good” or “bad,” and oppressing people whose bodies don’t adhere to the thin ideal. As she writes, “Diet culture doesn't just mean ‘being on a diet,’ because you don't have to follow any sort of official diet to be caught up in the culture of dieting. Moreover, some people may eat in a way that they refer to as a diet for legit medical reasons (e.g. diagnosed celiac disease, diabetes, etc.) and not actually be engaging in diet culture.”

There is a wide body of literature tracing diet culture’s oppressive history and the lack of evidence to indicate that a thin body is a healthy body or that diets work for the vast majority of the population in the long-term. Some excellent starting resources, if you are new to this area and open to taking a hard look at both the science and the social harms, are the work of Aubrey Gordon, Kate Manne (whose terrific book Unshrinking is shortlisted for the National Book Award), and Ragen Chastain. Unfortunately, like many forms of bias, too many are not persuaded by good research and evidence, or even by hearing about diet culture’s harms. Instead, the tenets of diet culture take on a common-sense form, and we swim like fish in its waters. This is true in most social spaces, and certainly at work.

So how does diet culture show up in modern workplaces?

1. One common way that diet culture tends to show up at work is through “steps challenges.” Sometimes these are individual competitions: the person with the most steps taken during the challenge period wins; other times they are collective: if we as a team can take X steps or cross Y miles together, then we can celebrate a shared victory. The goal of getting more movement itself is a worthy one; studies consistently show that physical activity has positive impacts on our health and well-being independent of our body weight or size¹, as long as we are not doing so in a way that causes injury or harm (including through orthorexic behaviors like excessive exercise, which is incredibly common in diet culture). My team has done a number of these, and I participate about half of the time —when I am not injured, when I feel it aligns with my own goals about getting out and moving more, and most importantly only when it is not explicitly framed in any way connected to weight loss.

   

   Photo by NEOM on Unsplash

   But there are good reasons that these challenges should also give us pause.

   1. Perhaps the most important one is that I’ve only rarely seen thoughtful consideration given to inclusion. The reality is that many people do not have access to this kind of movement: they may have physical limitations or injuries that make steps or miles painful or cumbersome, or cannot access safe places to move consistently enough to accumulate significant steps or miles, or cannot afford access to supportive equipment inside or outside of the home, or have caregiving or other responsibilities that create far less time for recreation than for others, to name just a few barriers! That lack of expansive thinking about access and ability also often includes a lack of thoughtful care for the many folks out there healing their relationship with food and exercise and their bodies, which at minimum is triggering for many. Related…

   2. Framing up these challenges almost always goes south: “Shed those extra pounds!” or “Offset those holiday treats!” are examples of the unquestioned assumptions and messages that these challenges too often carry. Given how diet culture (much like other harmful ideologies like white supremacy, or patriarchy, or homo/transphobia²) typically goes unquestioned and therefore unchallenged, it’s easy for the pitch to participate to become tangled up with a fat-phobic healthism that essentially tells us that taking more steps will help to create smaller bodies that are therefore also healthier bodies. It blames or credits individuals for the size of their bodies, which is largely determined by genetics and environmental / social causes rather than individual choices or behaviors. (Some workplaces go as far as to create weight loss challenges alongside them; thankfully nowhere I have worked has done so!) It is also fundamentally cruel and oppressive to those in larger bodies, telling them that people who look like them should not exist. (Gulp.) I want to be clear that I don’t think this is the intent, especially in the workplace, where the norms are usually those of civility rather than, I don’t know, being aggressive internet trolls to random fat³ or disabled strangers. But that’s exactly how messaging like this can become so insidious.

2. Perhaps the most overt way that diet culture shows up at work is through a variety of workplace “health” incentives. One of my favorite podcasts, Maintenance Phase, did an entire episode on the history, desired impact, special interests, and harmful consequences of these kinds of programs. It’s well worth a listen in full! But the general idea is that many workplaces offer some kind of discount, bonus, or other perk for employees who either agree to participate in some kind of weight or other health monitoring, or, in the worst cases, who meet some kind of standard (e.g., having a BMI in a range deemed acceptable) in their screenings. The commonly-held belief is that this motivates employees to achieve better health outcomes, thus saving the company on health costs, absenteeism, etc. while also ostensibly demonstrating care for their workforce.

   

   Photo by Graphic Node on Unsplash

   The problem, of course, is that these tend to be based around the assumption that we can control our bodies (and our weights) far more than any good evidence would support, and of course also that one’s weight determines one’s health. As Ragen Chastain, a researcher and author who many, myself included, regard as the most rigorous public health voice on weight science and research rigor, writes in a terrific piece called The Many Dangers of Conflating Weight and Health,

   …there is no such thing as a “healthy weight.” …. People have a certain health status, and people have a weight. These are two separate things. We know that because there are people with the same weight and vastly different health statuses. There are also people of vastly different weights with the same health statuses.… “Health” by any definition is a complex, amorphous concept, and is not an obligation, barometer of worthiness, or entirely within our control….

   Asking people to weigh in annually, and/or incentivizing weight loss in any way sets people up for disordered eating, as well as a range of other unhealthy behaviors (e.g., overexercise) and unfair judgements (that those in larger bodies must be unhealthy, a drain on the system, and morally inferior). It asks us all to participate in the lie that diets work for anything more than a minuscule percentage of the population in the long term, and that for anyone else, it’s they who are failing in willpower or commitment, not the multibillion dollar diet and weight loss industry poised to take advantage of our biases against fat bodies and our own learned cruelties.

   It also fails to be inclusive of those whose bodies or circumstances do not allow access to the time, money, equipment, or other resources necessary to achieve these outcomes, even if losing weight was a simple matter of “calories in, calories out,” which it is not⁴. None of this has any place at work! But the uncritical acceptance of diet culture and anti-fatness in the society at large means that too many well-meaning employers, many of whom sincerely want healthy workplaces and to offer programs and resources to help support those goals, create programs that can cause further harm or create further barriers for those who most need access to weight-neutral healthcare and medications like GLP-1s for conditions like diabetes.

3. Finally, it’s not uncommon at many workplaces for diet talk to function as small talk. This isn’t exclusive to workplaces. It’s also common at family and friend gatherings and at most places where people try to connect and bond. The desire to bond is a healthy one, but bonding around health, something so few of us individually control at the end of the day, and even worse around unhealthy topics like dieting, isn’t good in the long-run for anyone. We too easily slip into talk about “overeating” around holidays, self-deprecation about needing to shed pounds, “lifestyle changes” that are really just diets or excessive exercise, fear of sugar for ourselves or for kids, and more.

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

It may seem obvious to not feed diet culture at work, but it can be really hard to do. Even celebrating weight loss along with someone on a “health journey” that they are making public is likely to make them feel like shit later when they, like more than 95% of the population, regain the weight. Many, many people go on to share stories of being congratulated and celebrated when they were in fact at their unhealthiest —struggling with a chronic illness, an eating disorder, grief or depression, etc. I want to be clear that the move is not to turn around and shame or even “school” someone who participates in this kind of body talk, because everyone should have autonomy over their bodies, but rather to find something to say that is kind and supportive without reinforcing the harmful ideas at play.

So what are some ways that we can influence our workplaces away from diet culture? Here are a few ideas:

• Many health insurance plans fully cover working with a dietician, and thankfully it’s relatively easy to find one who uses a Health at Every Size®, anti-diet approach. I’ve done this previously and I’m seeing another provider (in my new state) now, where we’ve worked on things like intuitive eating practices and some specific nutrition goals that are, like all good medical care, attentive to my individual needs and challenges. (For example, mine helps me to be sure I’m eating enough, and understanding different protein sources without needlessly going overboard on protein like we learn to in diet culture, etc.) While it may not be a direct method of changing my workplace practices, programs, or culture, it does help me to better meet my own health needs, and I thankfully don’t pay a penny out of pocket for it. My employee health plan does.

• Reach out to share your feedback and concerns about policies and programs with folks at your workplace who might misstep, and who are in a position of influence. This can be hard, but every time I do so, I’ve felt heard and also seen sincere consideration if not outright improvement. The alternative to me feels worse: saying nothing and just hoping that things get better.

• If they aren’t already, get your DEI team on board. Inclusive health programs are those that are accessible to all and thoughtful about weight stigma and those with a history of, or propensity toward, eating disorders. Offer to be a resource and partner in making sure that your workplace’s DEI efforts are thoughtful about all bodies at work, or share resources to help those responsible for them to do so.

• Interrupt diet talk! This can take overt or more subtle forms, but it’s important for all of us to steer the conversation when it goes into territory that can make people in larger bodies feel like crap, or trigger those who might struggle with disordered eating. This resource is created for holiday conversations, but I think that all of them can be effective at work as well.

What else can we do to resist diet culture in the workplace? Let’s talk about in the comments!

1. If you are curious to learn more about evidence-based insights about weight and health, Ragen Chastain’s work is indispensable.

2. {{{whispers loudly: these are all deeply interrelated!!!!}}}

3. Like those in the Health at Every Size® movement, I use this word as a neutral descriptor, like tall or short.

4. Rven this otherwise rigorous piece still contains a line at the end that reads, “For long term weight loss, it’s important to follow evidence-based programs from health-care professionals and make gradual changes to your lifestyle to ensure you form habits that last a lifetime,” when in fact there are no such evidence-based approaches to sustained weight loss. Blerg.