Health Isn’t a Personality or a Body Type
Heading into diet culture's favorite month + the questions I hear most often—what anti-diet culture actually means, and what it very much does not.
Well, here we are—the first day of the year. And as we all know, when the calendar turns, diet culture turns up the volume. This is the diet and fitness industries’ favorite month of the year, so all of the usual noise gets even louder—the pressure increases, the promises get sexier, and the wellness industrial complex cloaks itself in ever more insidious narratives.
January marketing sells us ‘health’ as a full personality renovation: smaller, stricter, more ‘disciplined,’ more controlled. If you feel that familiar tightening in your chest at the phrase new year, new you, I want to slow things down right here.
We can pursue health without pursuing thinness. And in truth, the pursuit of thinness has never been a reliable path to well-being at all.
It’s far more often about control, distraction, and the false idea that changing our bodies will quiet something deeper.
This is where my work—and this newsletter—have always lived. I practice through a weight-inclusive, anti-diet lens not because I’m uninterested in health, but because I care about it deeply.
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We’ve been taught to see health in a very narrow, performative way: it’s what we eat, how much we exercise, and whether our bodies “look” a certain way.
But true health is nuanced, complex, individual, and ever-changing.
It’s not a destination, a moral obligation, or a one-size-fits-all checklist. It doesn’t have a singular definition and it also isn’t accessible to everyone.
And for many people—especially those from marginalized communities—this narrow version of health is deeply oppressive.
When a certain body type and “lifestyle” are upheld as a sign of status and value…of goodness and morality; of “discipline” and “will power”; of intelligence and worthiness…what does that say about everyone else who cannot meet that *criteria*?
The anti-diet movement exists to challenge that reductive, stigmatizing view.
It is not just body positivity with better branding, and it’s not a refusal of nutrition, movement, or medical care. It asks us to look beyond aesthetics and willpower and instead examine autonomy, access, stigma, and the systems that taught us to equate thinness with virtue. It invites a broader, more humane definition of health—one that doesn’t require fear, shame, or self-erasure to participate.
Anti-diet is about dismantling diet culture (a system of oppression that moralizes thinness and certain ways of eating) and creating a world where all humans are given access to equitable medical interventions, safe food, and unbiased healthcare.
At its core, anti-diet work is anti-oppression work.
And still, it makes sense that questions come up about exercise, nutrition, dieting, medical advice, weight loss, and self-care.
So, I thought we could talk through some of the most common concerns. (I’m covering nine of them today.)
P.S. - We can always do a part two if there are more questions!
1. No one in the anti-diet space is saying that you should only eat pizza, ice cream, candy, & doughnuts all day for eternity.
Let’s begin with this: Food doesn’t have moral value, all foods fit (of course, unless you’re allergic/have a medical necessity), and pleasure is an important part of a healthy relationship with food.
Liberation isn’t about swinging from rigid restriction to rigid rebellion. It’s about nourishment that supports both physical and mental well-being, without fear running the show. Research consistently shows that when food rules loosen and trust is rebuilt, people naturally eat with more variety, attunement, and stability—not less. The goal isn’t chaos or deprivation dressed up as freedom; it’s a relationship with food that feels calm, flexible, and sustainable enough to last a lifetime.
2. No one in the anti-diet space is saying it’s bad or wrong to lose weight.