This Ice Cream Left a Bad Taste in My Mouth
/While recently perusing the ice-cream section at the grocery store, I discovered a brand I wasn’t familiar with.
After studying all their enticing flavors, I grabbed the one that really made my taste buds tingle and tossed it into my shopping basket.
Later that evening, when I peeled the lid off the pint, I was greeted with the following words:
CHEAT DAY APPROVED.
Although I was annoyed by the diet-culture messaging, I enjoyed the ice cream enough to buy another pint the next time I went shopping.
When I pulled the lid off the second container, I was hit in the face with more diet-culture B.S.:
YOU DESERVE THIS.
Seriously?
This left me feeling more than annoyed!
I just want to savor some yummy ice cream without being bombarded by diet-culture messaging that promotes food restriction, food moralism, and other disordered eating beliefs and behaviors.
Is this too much to ask for? Apparently so!
Cheat Days Not Approved
I’ve never liked the idea of a cheat day.
Not only does it imply you’re a morally good or bad person for eating a certain way, it’s based on a rigid approach to eating that includes deprivation and disregard of your body’s needs and desires.
And, despite granting you a free pass to eat whatever you want, cheat days can still leave you feeling guilty, ashamed and anxious.
As a result, you may feel you need to pay a penance for your day of “sinful” eating, often by pulling the reins in tighter with your eating and exercise—until your next cheat day, that is.
Ultimately, cheat days set you up for a vicious restrict-binge cycle and an overall dysfunctional relationship with food and your body.
Deserving the Right to Eat
I’ve written before about the ridiculous idea that you do or don’t deserve to eat something. It sounds like this:
I deserve some ice cream because I exercised today, ate really clean this week, had a hard workday, etc.
I don’t deserve any ice cream because I skipped my workout, ate too much today, didn’t get my project done, etc.
Despite what our toxic diet culture wants you to believe, your eating never has to be deserved, earned or compensated for.
You have the right to consume whatever you want, whenever you want and however much you want.
It’s your birthright!
Bad Taste in My Mouth
Despite liking the ice cream, I’m not sure if I will buy it again as I’m so turned off by the company’s diet-culture messaging.
It’s unclear what their intention is, perhaps to be funny or reassuring.
My guess is that they don’t mean any harm and don’t realize how their words can perpetuate an unhealthy relationship with food.
Of course, my experience with this brand is not unlike my experience with many other food and beverage companies that also promote the diet mentality on their packaging and in their advertising.
Sadly, once you start to look more closely, you see how insanely and annoyingly pervasive it is.
I don’t know about you, but it leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.
