What If You Were Never the Problem?

One of the comparisons I make most often with my clients is that diet culture can feel remarkably similar to being in an abusive relationship.

At first, that may sound like an extreme comparison.

But stay with me.

One of the defining characteristics of an abusive relationship is that the person being harmed is often convinced that they are the problem.

They're told:

"If you weren't so sensitive…"

"If you just tried harder…"

"If you did things differently…"

Over time, they begin to believe it.

They become convinced that if they could only say the right thing, do the right thing, or become the "right" person, the relationship would finally become safe and loving.

But that's the lie.

Because no matter how hard they try, the abuse eventually returns.

The goalposts keep moving.

The problem was never that they weren't enough.

The problem was the relationship itself.

I see something eerily similar happen with diet culture.

We're constantly given the message that if we aren't thin enough, disciplined enough, or able to stick to the latest diet, then we must be the problem.

"If you just had more willpower…"

"If you were more motivated…"

"If you could finally control yourself…"

Then, supposedly, we'll finally be happier. More attractive. More confident. More worthy. More successful. More lovable.

And I think this is an important piece that we don't talk about enough:

Most people aren't actually chasing thinness. They're chasing what they've been promised thinness will give them.

Acceptance.

Belonging.

Confidence.

Love.

Freedom from judgment.

The ability to finally walk into a room without wondering what everyone is thinking about their body.

So of course it's hard to walk away.

You're not just being asked to give up a diet.

You're being asked to question a promise you've potentially been given your entire life: "When your body finally looks right, your life will finally feel right."

And every new diet brings that promise back.

Maybe this one will be different.

Maybe this is the plan I'll finally stick to.

Maybe this time I'll become the person I've been trying so desperately to become.

There's hope in the beginning.

Sometimes there's even a high.

You feel motivated. In control. Excited.

"This is it."

Until eventually, restriction starts feeling like restriction.

Hunger gets louder.

Cravings intensify.

Life happens.

Your body pushes back.

And when the diet inevitably becomes unsustainable, we don't question the diet.

We question ourselves.

We think:

"I failed."

"I just don't have enough self-control."

"Everyone else can do it except me."

And perhaps the most damaging part is that we often don't recognize our body's response as a response to deprivation.

We experience hunger and call ourselves weak.

We experience cravings and call ourselves out of control.

We eat more after restricting and call ourselves failures.

We take our body's attempts to protect us and turn them into evidence against ourselves.

But what if we've been blaming the wrong person all along?

Diet culture is a multi-billion-dollar industry built, in large part, on convincing people that their bodies are problems that need to be solved.

Because if you believe you're the problem, you'll keep looking for the solution.

The next program.

The next meal plan.

The next supplement.

The next challenge.

The next promise.

And the cycle repeats itself:

Shame → restriction → deprivation → cravings → overeating or bingeing → more shame → another diet.

Again.

And again.

And again.

And every time you come back around, diet culture gets to whisper:

"See? You failed again."

But what if the failure isn't yours?

What if your inability to spend your entire life fighting your body's needs isn't a character flaw?

What if your hunger isn't evidence of weakness?

What if your body isn't something that needs to be conquered?

What if you were never the problem?

One of the most powerful parts of the work I do with clients around food and body image is helping them begin to separate their own voice from the voice of diet culture.

Because after hearing these messages for years, they don't sound like messages anymore.

They sound like truth.

"I shouldn't eat that."

"I need to make up for what I ate yesterday."

"I'll feel better about myself once I lose weight."

"I can't trust myself around food."

"I shouldn't look like this."

And slowly, we begin asking:

Whose voice is that?

Who taught you that?

And what might happen if you stopped treating every thought you've been taught about your body as a fact?

That's where something begins to shift.

Instead of turning against themselves, clients begin questioning the messages they've absorbed for decades.

Instead of fighting their bodies, they begin learning to listen to them.

Instead of measuring their worth by the size of their jeans, they begin discovering who they are apart from a number on the scale.

Instead of asking, "How do I finally control my body?" they can begin asking, "What would it look like to finally stop being at war with it?"

That shift changes everything.

Healing doesn't begin when you finally find the perfect diet.

It begins when you stop believing that your worth was ever determined by one in the first place.

If you've spent years trapped in this cycle, you may have learned to believe that your struggle means you're weak, lazy, undisciplined, or lacking willpower.

But perhaps you've simply spent years being taught to distrust a body that was trying to communicate with you all along.

Those messages were learned.

And they can be unlearned.

Learning to make peace with your body isn't about giving up.

It isn't about "letting yourself go."

Maybe it's about finally letting go of the belief that you were a problem that needed fixing in the first place.

Because perhaps the relationship you need to leave isn't the one you have with food.

Perhaps it's the one that has spent years convincing you that you'll finally be worthy when you become someone smaller.