The Diet Industry: A Gateway Drug. by Kensington

Alex asked me to write something that has to do with body image for the Blogger Body Calendar’s wonderful website that I’ve been enjoying. She’s the bomb, so I am happy to oblige. A few months ago, I jotted down a topic with the intention to write about it, but I never fleshed it out.

Here we go a’fleshing.

We’re all familiar with the term “gateway drug”. Professionals warn the public and parents warn their children that cigarettes, alcohol or marijuana can be “gateway drugs” – a portal to hardcore drugs and a life less than well-lived. You know what I think is a “gateway drug”? The Culture of the Diet Industry. Not a pre-cursor to actual drugs, mind you, but rather one of the first things that can come up in the life of an impressionable, young mind, especially when self image and body image are being experimented with and developed.

I’m not slamming diets themselves. Like many other products and services out there, some are great, some are ok, some are terrible. Most of them are not meant for someone with an eating disorder. But the Culture of the Diet Industry is similar to the intimidating presence of a pusher in a school yard, complete with the, “I’ve got something you don’t even know you need” promise that can both frighten and intrigue a teenager or adolescent.

Parents want to be able to be aware of landmines like addictive substances, and be there just when their child needs them. Be there to step in and say, “This is dangerous for these reasons. If you get involved in this now, you will find it harder and harder to step away. You will start to lose yourself”. Parents want to be able to say, “This is what my experience with this was like, and what I learned from it” or “I never tried it, but I know many lives it has compromised or ruined”.

What makes this such a challenge when the “gateway drug” is the Culture of the Diet Industry is that we don’t think of it that way. The quickest way for risk to make its way into a home is when the parents are unaware the risk is there, or don’t recognize it as a risk at all. I read a lot of articles related to eating disorders as part of my job. More and more, the articles pile up with new stats, data and polls, showing that as a society even pre-schoolers are starting to think they’re fat and need to go on a diet.

Bad body image often begins at home. It may be solely as a reaction to stress or pressure a child or teenager is feeling. It may be the kid is growing up in a house where detesting your body and always wanting to change it is the norm. What a difference it would make if parents decided to be more mindful of the frightening number of times their child sees ads for diet plans before they’re even ten years old. Ads that taunt, “Everyone is doing it!”. What a difference it would make if parents made it clear diets are for certain people, but there is no reason for the entire nation to be dieting. What a difference it would make if parents made a conscious effort to mute commercials when diet ads come on, and stop referring to the size of their behind, or anyone else’s.

When our children are allowed to see diets as just something most people do, it becomes a gateway drug. Only instead of it leading to something out of a PSA on television, it can lead to bad body image. To poor self-esteem. To self-hatred. To diet obsession. To disordered eating. To eating disorders. To a lifetime of thinking that the key to happiness lies in just giving Jenny a call. It normalizes the idea that everyone is on a diet and everyone should be on a diet, regardless of age, ethnicity, gender or, for that matter, actual body size.

How interesting it would be to see a PSA addressing the Culture of the Diet Industry. An ad encouraging parents to say to their kids, “This is dangerous for these reasons. If you get involved in this now, you will find it harder and harder to step away. You will start to lose yourself”, or This is what my experience with this was like, and what I learned from it” or “I never tried it, but I know many lives it has compromised or ruined”.

In this case, the smaller number being better is perhaps best reflected this way: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Kensington is the Administrator for Something Fishy Website on Eating Disorders. In her free time, she enjoys theatre, music, critters and waiting for Batman to return her calls.

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