Common “Anti – Diet” Misconceptions

If one is anti-diet, does that mean they are anti-being healthy?

Absolutely not. I can fully understand the confusion as I felt the same way before I was open to learning more. I was trained as a registered dietitian.  My entire education, both at a bachelors and a masters level, were in human nutrition and my entire professional life has been centered around teaching people how to lead their “healthiest” life.  The fabric of my being always looked through the lens of health.  That all changed when my, at the time, 16-year-old, was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa.  As with any life-threatening diagnosis, you become the expert.  Unfortunately, I learned very quickly that the things I thought I was the expert at, I was actually fully misinformed.  And it upsets me to think I have publicly contributed to spreading misinformation.  

I believe in living your “healthiest” life.  And I still do. However, MY definition of healthy has changed.  (And, by no means, am I saying that yours is wrong!) “Living in a healthy” body, to me, meant living in a body that is at your “ideal” body weight and a consuming a diet that is “balanced” and most things in “moderation”.  And that is what I preached for my entire adult professional and personal life. 

 I never believed in “diets” but what in the world does that really mean?  If I had a client say to me, “I want to lose 20/50/200 pounds because I need to healthier” it would make my heart swell because that was my life’s work!  Well, it was until February 2021 when I started reading “Anti-Diet” by Christy Harrison and as I turned the pages, tears streamed down my face.  I had felt a dichotomy within the field of nutrition for many years – which is why I left the clinical nutrition space, but I never could put my finger on it?  While reading “Anti-Diet”, it all started to come together for me.  It was pages and pages of statistics, studies and time lines in “nutrition” history/ health campaigns in the 80’s and early 90’s – the years I was deep in my schooling – and how inaccurate the information I learned actually was.  This was the rise of DIET CULTURE and I was educated smack in the middle of it!  Lucky me!  

Had I been taught in school the more accurate science that ‘intentional weight loss’ was only successful in 5% of people past the 5 year mark AND most people actually gain more weight back AND that weight cycling is more harmful than the initial body weight – I am pretty sure I would not have NEVER put anyone on a weight loss diet – regardless of their “health status”.   

Weight loss diets DO NOT work.  End. Of. Story. And often cause more harm.  

This is why the “anti-diet” movement started.  Not because people wanted to start a movement to have people stop caring about their health BUT to educate them on HOW they CAN properly affect their health….or not.  The Anti-Diet movement is based on science and facts.  Not opinions.  I encourage you to look into HAES (health at every size  https://haescommunity.com) This is ground breaking stuff.  Your body size does NOT determine your health.  

However, something called “social determinants of health” DO impact your overall health status and that is what we should focus on and not JUST body weight. SDOH were NOT factored in in the big longitudinal studies for overall health status and body weight- which in the most simplistic explanation to why they are flawed!!! This is an important topic for a future discussion.  

Health is more than what shows up in lab tests, more than exercise, more than what we eat, it is not a body type, is not a diet full of ‘superfoods’, it is not static, and it definitely is NOT THE NUMBER ON A SCALE.

Let us focus on how the Anti-Diet movement is actually quite PRO – Health. When you are not focusing on one’s body weight measurement as the sole predictor of health, it allows equal care and respect for ALL bodies – regardless of their BMI or “obesity” classification.  It puts the focus on building healthy habits without the goal of losing weight (or gaining!).  Healthy habits can be learning how to salsa, eating one more vegetable a day, good sleep hygiene and so many more.  And lastly (for this discussion), anti-diet promotes eating for overall well-being and not for the sole purpose of shrinking one’s body.  

In summary, anti-diet does NOT mean anti-health! It IS anti-diet culture.  It simply (not so simply) means that you can NOT determine one’s health BY their body weight (or shrinking oneself) and diets are proven to NOT work in the long term so to focus on being “healthy” you should focus on healthy behaviors and things that feel good to you!!!  And to everyone that may mean something different and that is OK!!!!  

Rhee EJ. Weight Cycling and Its Cardiometabolic Impact. J Obes Metab Syndr. 2017;26(4):237-242. doi:10.7570/jomes.2017.26.4.237. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6489475/

The Obesity Paradox: When Thinner Means Sicker and Heavier Means Healthier Hudson Street Press: NY, NY Look Ahead (2013). NEJN Tomiyama et al (2016).

Bacon & Amphamor [20111. Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a

Paradigm Shift. Nutrition Journal 2011, 10:9http://www.nutritionj.com/content/10/1/9