In the Panorama documentary The Dark Side of Swimming Clubs it discussed how young swimmers were put on diets. It covered being controlled by their male coaches who would shame them about their weight. As a 14-15 year old competitive swimmer I remember being put on the Rosemary Conley diet of cottage cheese and diet coke.
How fuelling affects performance is something we didn’t really understand in the early 90s. We just thought a big bowl of pasta with a tomato sauce would sustain you. No one talked to us about portion control, how much we should be consuming for our weight, eating protein to recover or looking at ingredients. Now, sports nutrition is far more understood. But so is body awareness and I really hope consideration of people’s feelings. How you feel about yourself is shaped during this time.
Sarah Powell’s article Diet culture and weight loss mirrors my experience of the diet culture. ‘Being born when calorie counting was invented, growing up in the 90s where you couldn’t be thin enough and eating was cheating, is a hard indoctrination to break free from. It’s a solid belief system that has tentacles in every area of me.’
Weight watchers was obsessive about counting, no carbs after 6pm too restrictive. The only thing that made sense was the GI diet and subsequently the Glucose Goddess. This science is based on how foods make you feel, and don’t spike your blood sugar.
As she continues ‘But what about body acceptance?! What about being comfortable in one’s skin? What about body positivity? And taking up space? So what next? Weightloss jabs? I can’t say I haven’t been very tempted. But it won’t tackle my underlying emotional crap will it? I’m no therapist but “surely” that’s worth exploring. Even though I can now say I like my body (sometimes) I still want to lose weight so the obvious question is, why?’
Once i’d starting delving into this subject other topics arose. Sarah Furniss poses the question So does everyone just constantly think they’re too big? which addresses the issue of how we speak to ourselves when we wouldn’t speak to anyone else like that.
Anita Bhagwandas asks Are you a victim of generational dieting trauma? noting ‘Gen Z has plenty to contend with, from diet culture rebranding itself as wellness (what is Keto if not a modern Atkins?), to the normalisation of cosmetic surgery and unrelenting effects of social media.’
All diets really are are about not accepting yourself as you try to change how you look.
Yet if you listen to Jamella Jamil’s logic as she discusses why “BMI is such nonsense!” you can appreciate why dieting to achieve the unobtainable is such an outdated concept now. I’d much rather move towards acceptance, be free of obsessions and comfortable in my own skin thanks. It’s just taken me until almost 50 to sum it up!
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