Episode 65: Letting Go of the Burden of Diet Culture.
On this week’s podcast, we’re talking about the legacy burden of diet culture.
You might be asking, what is a "legacy burden?" Excellent question! According to IFS (Internal Family Systems), we all carry burdens, which are “the negative beliefs, emotions, sensations, or other energies that were absorbed and accumulated from past traumas and other life experiences.” In other words, through difficult and traumatic experiences, our parts end up taking on difficult emotions and beliefs.
In addition to picking these up from our own traumatic experiences, burdens can passed on to us from family members (legacy burdens) and/or can be absorbed from the culture at large (cultural burdens).
Dick Schwartz, the founder of IFS, believes that we have four main cultural burdens in the United States:
Racism
Materialism
Individualism
Patriarchy
And I think diet culture intersects with all of those, making it a cultural burden as well.
In this week's podcast, we're talking about how diet culture is a cultural burden, and what to do about it. This is something that I talk about a lot with clients, because it's incredibly important for your parts to realize that the messages they took in about food and bodies is not authentic to them. It's mostly not even true! And when our parts can understand that these messages aren't accurate or authentic, they can finally let them go.
Which can change everything.
For example:
Once you let go of the idea that thin=healthy, you can focus on health markers that actually matter.
When you let go of the belief that certain foods are morally better than others, you can make food choices based on what your body (and your parts) actually want.
When you let go of the negative beliefs you carry about your body, you can finally treat it with the compassion and respect it deserves.
Letting go of these messages is definitely worth doing, and this podcast will help you do that!
Sabrina Strings, Fearing the Black Body
Sabrina Strings on Food Psych podcast
Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women
Want to stop dieting but don't know how? Grab my FREE E-Course, "Diets: Why They Don't Work and How to Quit Them for Good" here!
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