I loved Kate Manne’s piece too. The most problematic tenet of diet culture for me personally is the “hard work” aspect- I still see it in so many of my peers as our kids get older and we are in the post 35/early 40s is this perimenopause age. I am outwardly opposed to dieting and frequently share my experience but I still hear or see comments about “I can’t eat like that anymore at my age” or “I am working so hard to get back to where I was a few years ago.” And with people I see frequently I push back but it’s so ingrained, especially in the white middle class community I often find myself in.
The intersection of ageism and diet culture is really intense. And it comes at a time in life when many of us have even more responsibilities—if we really have time to do more "hard work" in another area of life, I can think of so many other things we can invest our energy in that would be more fulfilling and more health-promoting, too.
I loved Kate Manne’s piece too. The most problematic tenet of diet culture for me personally is the “hard work” aspect- I still see it in so many of my peers as our kids get older and we are in the post 35/early 40s is this perimenopause age. I am outwardly opposed to dieting and frequently share my experience but I still hear or see comments about “I can’t eat like that anymore at my age” or “I am working so hard to get back to where I was a few years ago.” And with people I see frequently I push back but it’s so ingrained, especially in the white middle class community I often find myself in.
The intersection of ageism and diet culture is really intense. And it comes at a time in life when many of us have even more responsibilities—if we really have time to do more "hard work" in another area of life, I can think of so many other things we can invest our energy in that would be more fulfilling and more health-promoting, too.