Why Is Diet Culture Toxic?
Due to the notion of labelling foods based on how much you have eaten or worked out, the diet culture may worsen or cause eating disorders in many people. Among these, orthorexia is a common problem. It refers to an extreme type of eating when people obsessively eat foods that they believe to be good and healthy. This would lead to a restrictive diet, which may lack other nutritious products. Orthorexia could result in other problems as well, such as obsessive-compulsive disorders and anorexia nervosa. [4]
Body Image in Diet Culture
In the diet culture, people believe that having a thin body is healthy and beautiful. This means being too fat or overweight may be a sign of bad appearance. Although weight loss can be healthy, people tend to follow many harmful approaches to achieve this goal. Social media and news typically promote celebrities with these body images and spread weight loss stories without figuring out which methods they used. This leads to a toxic practice in which pursues extreme weight loss and thinness without following medical advice from experts. A lack of exercise and poor diet may even increase the risk of health problems. [5]
