I Tried to Eat Perfectly. Diet Culture Demanded It.
/Recently, I shared how I used to be a chronic overeater and that I still sometimes eat until I’m uncomfortably full.
Thankfully, this doesn’t bother me much anymore as I’ve stopped trying to be a perfect eater.
Things were much different when I was dieting.
No Wiggle Room
I was devastated whenever I felt I messed up with my eating. There wasn’t any wiggle room or gray area. I was either eating right or I was eating wrong.
Diet culture, with its black-and-white, all-or-nothing approach, teaches us that to be successful, we must follow its rules and binaries perfectly. Wellness culture often does this, too.
Food is either good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, clean or toxic, fattening or slimming.
You’re either on the wagon or off it. If you fall off, it’s your fault.
Rather than blaming diet and wellness cultures’ unrealistic and unsustainable standards, you are blamed for not having enough willpower, discipline and self-control.
I certainly bought into all of this.
Thrived on Perfection
As someone with perfectionistic tendencies, I was especially susceptible to the gold-star behaviors diet and wellness cultures demand.
I thrived on following the rules, doing it right, being good, earning a perfect score.
I relished the sense of achievement I felt at bedtime when I thought I had eaten perfectly all day.
I patted myself on the back for staying on track by eating the right food in the right amount at the right time.
Naturally, I also loathed the sense of failure I felt when I believed I had eaten imperfectly.
A “bad” choice would completely derail my day. My mood would turn dark, and I’d become preoccupied with how I would make up for it, which usually meant eating less and exercising more.
I took a lot of pride in being a good eater, a healthy eater, a disciplined eater—all traits our society puts on a pedestal.
I thought eating perfectly made me a better person (another lie I regrettably believed).
In reality, it just made me miserable and intolerable to myself and those closest to me.
While outsiders praised my eating, my loved ones had to deal with all the tiresome crap that came along with my rigid food rules and relentless pursuit to eat perfectly.
Permission to Be Human
In order to heal my disordered relationship with food, I needed to learn how to stop viewing it through the perfectionistic, black-and-white, good-or-bad lens I had been taught.
I also needed to relearn how to trust myself, my body’s internal cues and my instincts instead of following external sources and rules regarding the “right” way to eat.
When I threw away all the “eat this, not that” lists and started making eating decisions based on what tastes good and feels good in my body, I became a much more flexible, relaxed and peaceful eater.
Instead of striving to be perfect, I gave myself permission to be human, one who most of the time eats until they’re comfortably full and sometimes eats until they’re stuffed.
The Deeper Work
More than anything, I had to do the deeper work of understanding what drove my desire to achieve the perfect diet and the perfect body.
To truly change, I had to examine the roots of my perfectionism and anti-fat bias, challenge our culture’s body ideals, and question what being healthy truly means.
None of this happened easily or quickly nor have I reached a final destination (I'm not sure there is one). It's an ongoing process but one that's so worth it.
