Understanding Diet Culture and how Religion Reinforces It
Conversations about health are often tangled up in unrealistic expectations and unspoken rules about how our bodies “should” look. Much of this stems from diet culture—a pervasive system of beliefs that equates thinness with worthiness, health, and morality. Many of us are so immersed in it that we don’t even recognize how deeply it impacts our relationship with food, movement, and our bodies. And for those raised in Christian or religious communities, these messages are often spiritualized, making them even harder to untangle.
What Is Diet Culture?
Diet culture is a system of beliefs that:
Prioritizes thinness as the ultimate sign of health, beauty, and moral virtue.
Promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher social and personal value.
Normalizes disordered eating by labeling restriction, guilt, and control as “discipline” or “wellness.”
Devalues people in larger bodies while glorifying those in smaller ones, often without regard to actual health.
Diet culture is not just about food, rather it is stems from power, control, and a manufactured ideal that benefits multi-billion dollar industries while causing deep personal harm.
Core Beliefs of Diet Culture
“Smaller bodies are better bodies.”
“Your body is a problem to be fixed.”
“Weight loss is always a good thing.”
“Self-control with food is a sign of strength and virtue.”
“Exercise is punishment for eating.”
“Being healthy means being thin.”
These beliefs are sold to us through media, social norms, wellness influencers, and even churches.
Symptoms and Harmful Effects of Diet Culture
Living in diet culture can lead to a wide range of emotional, physical, and psychological symptoms:
Chronic dieting or yo-yo dieting
Disordered eating patterns (e.g., bingeing, restricting, obsessing over “clean” eating)
Poor body image and body shame
Low self-worth tied to weight or appearance
Exercise compulsion or guilt when not working out
Social withdrawal (e.g., avoiding events because of body shame or food anxiety)
Fatphobia—both internalized and toward others
Delayed medical care due to weight stigma
Diet culture often disguises itself as “wellness” or “health,” but it is rooted in shame, control, and unattainable standards.
How Religion Reinforces Diet Culture
In many religious spaces, diet culture is often spiritualized.
Here are a few common ways this shows up:
1. Moralizing Food and Bodies
Some teachings frame the body as something to control, tame, or purify. This can lead to spiritual guilt around hunger, fullness, or even body diversity. Phrases like “your body is a temple” are used to shame people into strict eating or exercise routines, rather than honoring the body’s needs with compassion.
2. Glorifying Self-Denial
Fasting, self-sacrifice, and “dying to the flesh” are seen as virtuous. While these can be meaningful spiritual practices, they are sometimes twisted into harmful justifications for disordered eating or body loathing, especially when conflated with diet messaging.
3. Women and Body Surveillance
In some religious communities, women are taught that their appearance impacts men’s purity or spiritual walk. Modesty messaging often includes body shaming, leading to long-lasting discomfort and fear of the body. “Taking care of your body” is sometimes code for achieving thinness to be more acceptable, desirable, or “godly.”
4. Church-Based Diet Programs
Programs like “Weigh Down Workshop,” “Thin Within,” or even informal small group challenges have fused weight loss with spiritual worth. These programs teach that overeating is sinful and weight gain reflects spiritual failure, reinforcing deep shame.
Healing from Diet Culture
Healing starts with awareness.
Challenge internalized beliefs. Ask yourself: Where did I learn that thin = better? Who profits from that belief?
Work toward body neutrality or body respect. You do not have to love your body every day, but you can begin to relate to it with compassion.
Feed your body regularly and adequately. Gentle nutrition and intuitive eating are supportive ways to care for your health without obsession.
Move your body for joy, not punishment.
Get support. Therapy, especially from someone who practices from a body-liberation, anti-diet lens, can help unpack the layers of shame and trauma that diet culture creates.
You Are Not a Problem to Fix
If you grew up in purity culture, conservative Christian traditions, or anywhere that emphasized body shame or “health” as moral obligation, you are not alone. You were handed toxic messages that were never yours to carry. Your body is not an object. It is not a reflection of your worth. It is the home you live in, and it is worthy of kindness, nourishment, and care.
If you are ready to begin healing your relationship with your body, food, or spirituality, I offer therapy for individuals recovering from religious trauma and body shame. I work from a body-liberation lens, helping you make peace with your body and reclaim your autonomy.
