EPI 4: Diet culture and body image need to exit stage left

Anyone out there have an almond mom? Did you grow up with the 90s and early 2000s “heroin chic” supermodels on every TV channel and tabloid in the supermarkets? What about the insane diets that plagued tweens, teens, young adults and moms alike? On this week’s episode, Amanda and Veronica talk about their arch nemesis, diet culture. They share their own stories growing up in the 90s and 2000s “a second on the lips is a lifetime on the hips” eras, and how it informed their body image growing up, and how it still affects them now. They then discuss how today’s youth has diet culture and body image wrapped up in the form of “wellness”, and how technology has changed the diet culture game, whether for the worse or better, they aren’t sure. Regardless of the years you grew up in, body image and diet culture is still very much apparent in health care, chronic illness or not. Amanda and Veronica address BMI in the doctor’s office, the prescribing of baseless diets in order to receive health care, and how diet culture and wellness have fully infiltrated that chronic illness world. Then, the two talk about body positivity, intuitive eating, and how realistic loving yourself really is.