How Diet Culture Quietly Shows Up in Sport

I approach this topic from a non-diet, weight-neutral perspective. I believe all bodies are worthy and all foods can have a place, and my recommendations are shaped by a person's genetics, family history, and their own relationship with food and body. That's the lens behind everything below.

Diet culture is a system of belief that equates thinness or a particular body shape with health and moral virtue, pushes weight loss and body reshaping as a path to higher status, labels certain foods as good or bad, and leaves out anyone who doesn't fit its narrow picture of what health looks like (Harrison, 2019). Most people can spot diet culture in a magazine or a wellness influencer's feed. It's harder to spot when it's woven into a coach's feedback or the everyday language of a training environment. That's exactly where it does the most damage.