How To Set Boundaries Around Diet Talk

May 31

Allow me to set the scene:

Remember that scene in Mean Girls where Regina, Karen, and Gretchen are getting ready and staring at their reflections, while casually mentioning everything they hate about their bodies? Then Cady, having grown up without other girls around, is super confused about why they’re all saying that?

While many jokes in Mean Girls haven’t aged well— this scene could’ve happened yesterday. We’ve all been hanging out with our friends and heard the conversation veer into diet culture territory.

You meet up with your friends for brunch and the first thing out of her mouth when the menus arrive is “I’ve been so bad lately I should really get a salad.”or you’re trying on bathing suits at a shop with your friends and your friend mentions that they’re gonna have to detox before your bach party to fit in their bathing suit. Or you’re sitting down to dinner with family over the holidays and your aunt nonchalantly comments on what’s on your plate, barely hiding her judgement about your second helping.

I could go on, but I’m SURE you know what I’m talking about. it’s become SO normal to tear ourselves apart publically, that we’ve stopped comprehending how unhealthy that behavior is- or what a cry for help it is. As @thenutritiontea says, diet culture isn’t just instagram and magazines (though, obviously it’s there BIG TIME) it’s also in the day to day conversations we’re having— sometimes without us even realizing it.

Obviously, we can’t control our environments 100% of the time. Part of healing our relationships with our bodies is also in preparing ourselves to handle triggers (while not intentionally putting ourselves in toxic situations, of course). Diet talk, weight loss talk, bad body image talk is unavoidable. This is even more frustrating when you’re out here doing the work to love yourself and be (physically AND emotionally) healthy and all of a sudden your bestie is all “my nail beds SUCK!”.

So what DO you do when someone starts on the diet talk and you wanna shut it down? Before you get on a 3 way call à la Karen to start talking shit about how toxic your friend’s comments are, try setting loving boundaries.

4 Ways To Set Healthy Boundaries To Protect Yourself From Diet Culture

1) Ignore! This is the simplest, but not necessarily the easiest. Choosing to not engage with self deprecating humor sends a strong message that you’re not interested in that conversation. I don’t love to say things like “Oh no, you look great!” when someone is talking about the things they don’t like about their body, because it’s a not so subtle way of saying that you agree that those things are bad- just not on them-however, to protect your mental health, sometimes you just have to pick your battles and move on.

2) Change the subject! This one is my preferred strategy, because it saves you from having to participate. If someone mentions something about a new diet they’re trying, or mentions how much weight they’ve lost/want to lose, you can try something like “I’m so happy you’re happy- but can we please examine what happened last night on the Bachelor?!?” Ideally, an artful pivot can stop the diet conversation right in its tracks, and move the convo to something that actually interests you/isn’t triggering.

3) Push back. Now we’re starting to get into trickier territory! This could look like: The next time your friend says “I feel so fat in these pants” you could say something along the lines of “I hear you, but I have to say, fat isn’t a feeling, and I’m actively working to dismantle my own fatphobia and cultural biases as well as practice more self compassion with my own body right now, so, comments like that are really hard for me to hear. I wanna be there for you, but talking about bodies like that is really unhealthy for me.I can tell you’re struggling with feeling insecure right now, what’s it really about"?” Gently communicating how her words affect you will put a stop from the conversation spiraling, and you’re also showing that you hear them and you want to support them, just not at your own mental health’s expense.

3) Remove yourself from the situation. We’re all in different places, and we can’t make people receptive to ideas and information they’re not ready for. If you’ve had a few talks with this person about how the diet talk is harmful to you, and they’re still not respecting your wishes to change the subject, or open to discussing what you find problematic about it, it may be time to create a little space. This is of course situation specific, but you have every right to decide to spend less (or no) time with people who aren’t on board with your journey to self worth and body peace.

Conclusion

I’ve been there- I still AM there- so I get that it’s easier said than done. Fitness was a really tough field for me to work in during my eating disorder recovery because the diet talk dressed up as wellness talk was absolutely RAMPANT. I intentionally set the boundary in my own classes that there would be no idealized body type, no talk of sculpting, and no body shaming to help protect the energy of my clients and myself. My digital pilates studio, HPS, offers nearly 300 body neutral, creative, challenging (I’ve been told they’re the hardest pilates classes out there— proving that you don’t need to be mean to yourself to get a good workout) workouts for you to take care of your body without running into dreaded diet drama. You can check it out here for free for 10 days to see what I mean!