Page 26 - Waterfall City Issue 1 2023

Waterfall City News

By Prof Tess van der Merwe,
endocrinologist in obesity
and weight loss surgery.

THE TOXICITY

OF DIET CULTURE

The warped western ideas surrounding morality and food

F or the last while, ‘diet culture’ or body temperature. It is not a matter of

has been a trending phrase on
willpower, as it would be like willing how
tall you are into submission. It does not
social media, with everyone from
academics to actors calling out
the age-old social phenomenon. So, work that way. The patient’s set-point,
which could be at a point that is classified
what exactly is diet culture? In simple as obese, will have their brain fighting
terms, it is the idea that food restriction, to retain or increase that weight, hence
and by proxy thinness, is a societal ideal the lack of satiety. Thus, you will not
to strive towards. Luckily in modern necessarily lose weight through diet and
times, the body positivity movement exercise.
has assisted in untangling the myths
surrounding weight and has asserted This is why weight loss surgery is
that thinness is not the exclusive body successful at helping a patient lose
type for judging attractiveness. We have weight. The newer operations are
also come far enough as a society to procedures where fancy footwork in the
understand the health risks of being bogus, misunderstood science behind stomach creates a hormonal change
on either side of the weight spectrum. weight loss. in the brain to reset that pesky gland.
However, the part of diet culture that I often use the following analogy with
is of particular interest to me is the My patients living with obesity often tell my patients when they first meet me, “if
idea of glorifying food restriction. me about how they are judged in the you had asthma, you would ask me for
line at a takeout place, or how they are a treatment, not to remove the pollen
I have raised my children with the often told to “just stop eating so much.” from the air.” Similarly, no doctor should
mantra, “food is one of the joys of The stereotype that a lack of satiety is ask you to engage in a restrictive diet
life,” and similarly with my patients, I linked to any form of moral characteristic for weight loss. Yes, a balanced diet is
advocate that they will never “push is pseudoscience. Within our brains, something we should all learn to put
around two peas on a plate” after weight we can find the pituitary gland, and together – myself and my experienced
loss surgery. Meals are an integral part here sits our weight set-point, which is dieticians relay this groundwork to all
of our socialisation as human beings genetically determined. For context, this patients who walk through our doors
whilst simultaneously fuelling our bodily gland also regulates factors such as body – but fad diets and overall diet culture
machines. So why are we pushing the temperature and height. Your body will are not something to romanticise. The
ideal that we should be restricting food, always fight to get back to the highest point is that we must stop laying moral
whether by cutting out carbs, detoxing set-point of weight as determined in this judgment on food and bodies when
(which does not exist – you have a liver part of the brain, as in years gone by, it it is a topic that should be handled
for a reason), fasting, excluding gluten, was an evolutionary advantage to be compassionately through the sciences.
excluding dairy, and excluding any joy or able to store and carry excess weight.
nutritional value you could imagine from So, if you want to know which diet you
your food intake? The answer comes Therefore, a patient experiencing should follow, I recommend that you
down to two factors: The warped western extreme appetite is at the mercy of the only follow a balanced diet. Don’t even
ideas surrounding morality and the same gland that determines their height call it a diet – call it your nourishment.

24 Waterfall City Issue 1 2023