Dear Younger Me

Do you ever think about the kinds of things you would tell your younger self if you had the chance? What would you feel is the most important for them to know? What wouldn't matter?

Today is International No Diet Day. I know there are a lot of people who are going to scroll right past this, but as a woman living in this culture we have created, I think this is one of the most important things you'll read all day. We live in a time of extreme dieting and exercise regimens, disordered eating being more common than anybody realizes, and ridiculous amounts of "fatphobia."

Fatphobia: Fear and dislike of obese people and/or obesity; Fear or obsessive avoidance of consuming fat.

What does fatphobia look like? It can take many forms. Some common ones are having constant fear of what the food you're putting in your mouth is going to do to your body, looking at other people's bodies and comparing them to your own, restricting your favorite foods just because they aren't "clean", taking pictures of yourself from an uncomfortable angle to look a certain way, and sometimes simply seeking for approval on your body from others on social media platforms.

BEING THIN WON'T FIX YOUR BODY IMAGE ISSUES.

I know I've caught myself in the lie that somehow if I just were a little smaller or looked a little different then I would feel better and I would love my body. WRONG. The diet culture has created this impossible and invisible goal of what "health" looks like. The diet culture teaches us that we need to do extreme things to our bodies to be happy. The diet culture is making healthy people create unhealthy habits and mindsets.

Think about this. In regard to diets, it's the only thing we buy that, when the product fails, we all blame ourselves and then go buy another version. How awful is that? Think about how many companies we are keeping in business because of our own self-discomfort and poor body image. All those companies who know their product can't actually provide long-lasting results or satisfaction and people will keep coming back to try again.

Common side-effects of dieting include:

• food preoccupation
• low self-esteem
• body dissatisfaction
• perpetuation of weight stigma
• eating disorders
• weight cycling
• slowed metabolism
• fatigue

Now that's just a few examples. My question is: why do we keep going back to them when they never actually work? 

Look at a baby. They are a perfect example of intuitive eating. They know when it's time to eat and when they are full. Nobody questions it because it's a baby, right? Even little kids know when they are ready to eat and when they aren't. When did we lose that ability to be intuitive? When did we forget that our biological hunger and fullness cues are there for a reason? When did we decide that putting ourselves under serious calorie deficits was the only way to love our bodies?

I wish I could go back and tell my younger self that what I look like on the outside does not determine the value of what I am on the inside. I wish I had a big enough voice to tell the diet culture to jump off a cliff. I wish we lived in a world that focused more on our God-given qualities, rather than our imperfect Earthly bodies. For now, I'll just remind myself that the diet culture isn't my culture and I can keep my younger self close by to remind me. 

In honor of no diet day, I choose:

• To reject the diet mentality
• To feed myself from a place of care, not control
• Not to measure my self worth by numbers
• To look for opportunities to show kindness to myself and my body
• To become more aware of how diet culture makes us miserable
• To put more worth on who I am inside

Today I'm gonna eat my popcorn with my sunglasses on because I want to.

Kami