How to reject diet-culture marketing

In the body-acceptance and anti-diet world, we talk a lot about media literacy—the ability to recognize and be critical of the unrealistic, impossibly Photoshopped images that are littered throughout our magazines, advertisements, and Instagram photos. 

But we almost never talk about marketing literacy—and it's just as important for being a critical consumer of diet culture's messages. 

Diet-culture marketing is bigger than just the images; it's also the insidious messages associated with those images. 

It's the messages that tell you how bright and shiny your life will be if you just do whatever it is that the diet du jour is telling you to do. (Spoiler alert: Dieting is actually more likely to make you miserable in the long run.)

It's the messages that make you believe there's something wrong with your body size and shape, and that you need to change them in order to be happy. (Spoiler alert: Accepting the size and shape of your body and giving up trying to change them has actually been shown to lead to greater happiness and well-being.) 

It's the messages that make you feel like you *can't live without* the latest diet plan or "lifestyle change," because THIS is finally the one that will change your body for good. (Spoiler alert: It's not. None of them are.)  

Marketing is one of the biggest ways diet culture keeps its claws in us, and it can be really hard to spot. 

That's why I'm so psyched to share this week's episode of Food Psych, which is all about how to recognize and reject diet-culture marketing. 

My guest, Kaila Prins, is a fellow body-liberation activist who for many years had a day job as a professional marketer. 

She shares how diet-culture marketing targets vulnerable people, how to recognize triggers and call them out, how the body-positive movement has also fallen prey to some problematic marketing strategies, how professionals and activists can market themselves ethically and avoid pitfalls, and lots more. 

It's a fantastic episode, and I can't wait for you to check it out!

I'm also SO psyched to announce that I'm launching a BRAND NEW online course to help fellow health and wellness pros avoid unintentional diet-culture messages in their work! 🙌

It's called Master Your Anti-Diet Message, and it's for professionals who know that diet culture has controlled the conversation in our field for WAY too long.

If you’re ready to stop taking part in diet culture’s version of “health,” start advocating for non-diet approaches that *truly* help your clients’ well-being, build a thriving brand that magnetizes clients who are ready for change, and help them break free from dieting and disordered eating for good, this course is for you! Learn more and join Master Your Anti-Diet Message now to join this great community. 

I hope you enjoy these resources, and I'll be in touch again next week with more support for your anti-diet, body-acceptance journey!

xo,
Christy


P.S. If you're a fellow health pro interested in aligning yourself more fully with the anti-diet, Health at Every Size movement, you won't want to miss my Master Your Anti-Diet Message mini-course!