Three Reasons Diet Culture is Bad for Your Heart & What You Can Do About It.

Remember the 90s? Hop in your flying DeLorean and let’s take a walk flight down memory lane. Curled up on the couch, cordless phone in hand, you get ready for a long gossip session with your BFF (best friend forever). A coffee table full of Snack Wells cookies, WOW! Lays potato chips and, of course, a Diet Coke, is within reach. Grabbing your Thigh Master, you squeeze those knees while discussing the latest TGIF episodes. Sound familiar?

While the 1990’s were totally awesome, they were also a hot-bed of diet culture. It is so ubiquitous in our society, even D.J. Tanner fell for it. Diet culture encompasses several aspects and has been around for the last couple hundred years (Kumar & Dixon Docter, 2022). Writer and registered dietitian Christy Harrison (2018) defines it on her website as a system of beliefs which:

o   Equates thinness and health with moral virtue

o   Promotes weight loss as a way of attaining a higher status

o   Demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others

o   Oppresses people who do not fit the ideal body type or match this picture of “health”

“But what does this have to do with my heart?” you ask.

D.J. Tanner is taking women’s heart health seriously and so should you.

It might be surprising that diet culture is bad for your heart. Not only are women often the primary target of diet culture, but according to the American Heart Association (AHA) (2023), heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States. Sadly, most women don’t even know of this fact (CDC, 2023). Organizations like the AHA’s Go Red for Women are working to raise awareness of the disease and how serious it is for women with the help of celebrities like Candace Cameron Bure (a.k.a. D.J. Tanner).

Like Leo DiCaprio in Romeo and Juliet, diets often masquerade as a “lifestyle.” Diet and lifestyle are usually at the center of conversations around heart health as they are sometimes referred to as “modifiable risk factors.” This if often well intentioned by health professionals, but can have serious consequences when looked at through the lens of diet culture. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2018) report that between 2013 and 2016, 49.1 percent of US adults said they tried to lose weight in the past 12 months. Most people assume their efforts will result in a smaller body, but the truth is, only five to 10 percent of those who lose weight maintain it, and after five years, most people regain around 80 percent of the weight they lost (Hall & Kahan, 2018). This pattern of loss-gain-loss-gain is referred to as weight cycling or more commonly, “yo-yo dieting.”

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed these weight fluctuations may increase the risks of cardiac events such as heart attack and stroke (Bangalore et al., 2017). Additionally, an ongoing study at Columbia University is also examining the link between yo-yo dieting and heart disease risk. Preliminary results show a strong connection, especially in post-menopausal women (American Heart Association, 2019).

Fiber is totally a carbohydrate. Low-carb, gluten-free, keto, South Beach, Atkins…the list goes on when it comes to popular diet trends. Many of these are touted as healthy lifestyle changes, but the reality is, popular fad diets are restrictive and can limit food variety, fiber intake and other beneficial nutrients. Restricting carbohydrate to 20 grams per day as recommended by both Atkins and Keto doesn’t leave much room for high-fiber foods like beans, grains and fruit.

The average adult American woman doesn’t eat enough fiber anyway (U.S. Department for Health and Human Services (HHS), 2021). Eating the recommended amount of fiber lowers cholesterol and regulates blood sugar (Cleveland Clinic, 2019). It also significantly reduces the risk and incidence of heart disease (McRae, 2017).

Remember the one where Courtney Cox wore a fat suit? In real life, Monica would stress out about her diet because trying to maintain a thin body ideal creates constant and chronic stress. This chronic stress may contribute to high blood pressure and heart disease (American Heart Association News, 2020). I have felt this stress in my own life, and it wasn’t until I learned about diet culture that I understood why. I thought it was “normal” to constantly think about food and exercise and obsess about my weight. This 2020 Popsugar article talks with several experts, including Christy Harrison, MPH, CDN, who sum-up what I have experienced since my teens. I was the girl on the couch with the Snack Wells, Diet Coke and Thigh Master. I tediously logged meals, counted calories, never skipped workouts and always took the stairs. I believed I was  living a healthy lifestyle, but the truth is, I wasn’t…I was just on one, long, miserable diet. The good news is, we can totally do something about it.

Diet food is lame.

It’s time to ditch diet foods, counting macros and following restrictive diets. Of course, this is easier said than done. Recovering from diet culture is a process and will take time, especially if you have been in this “lifestyle” for a while (over 25 years in my case). I frequently have days where I want to go back to dieting because I miss fitting into my “cute” jeans or am anxious about my larger body. Intuitive Eating is a ten principal concept that might help. It teaches you to honor your body and make peace with food. The principals outlined on the website are: rejecting diet mentality, honoring hunger, making peace with food, challenging the “food police”, discovering satisfaction, feeling fullness, coping with emotions, respecting your body, joyful movement and honoring your health. I personally enjoyed the unabridged audio version, Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works (2012) by Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD, and Elyse Resch, MS, RD, FADA, CEDRD. Explore it to see if it could help liberate you from diet culture.

Exercise has to be hard. As if! Regular physical activity is good for your heart. As mentioned earlier, Intuitive Eating encourages you to embrace joyful movement and let go of exercise routines that are only about burning calories or changing your body size and shape. Try a new class just for fun! Take a walk just to be outside. Set performance goals instead of weight loss goals. And finally, be gentle with yourself. You may be used to the “no pain, no gain” mentality which is hard to let go of. Experiment with one fun workout per week and take note how you feel. It is ok to enjoy a wicked weight-lifting session, but check-in with yourself about why it might be satisfying. Do you feel strong? Or do you feel “good” because you “burned calories?”

Are you still on dial-up? Around 72 percent of US adults say they visit at least one social media site every day (Pew Research Center, 2021). That means social media has a pretty profound impact on our daily lives. Take an inventory of the creators and influencers you’re following. What kinds of messages are they perpetuating? Start to replace images and accounts that promote diet culture with accounts that support positivity. Some fun follows are: Chrissy King, Anna Sweeney MS, RDN, CEDS-S and Jack Workman Yoga.

Meditation is for hippies…Not! Managing stress is also vital to improve heart health and reduce the risk of heart disease (American Heart Association News, 2020). Focus on being present with mindfulness and practice relaxation techniques like deep breathing. Try a loving kindness meditation or yoga, which incorporates joyful movement, mindfulness and relaxation. Your heart will thank you.

References:

American Heart Association. (2023). The facts about women and heart disease. Go Red for Women. https://www.goredforwomen.org/en/about-heart-disease-in-women/facts

American Heart Association. (2019, March 7). Yo-yo dieting may increase women’s heart disease risk. American Heart Association Newsroom. https://newsroom.heart.org/news/yo-yo-dieting-may-increase-womens-heart-disease-risk

American Heart Association News. (2020, February 4). Chronic stress can cause heart trouble. Heart. https://www.heart.org/en/news/2020/02/04/chronic-stress-can-cause-heart-trouble

Bangalore, S., Fayyad, R., Laskey, R., DeMicco, D. A., Messerli, F. H., & Waters, D. D. (2017). Body-weight fluctuations and outcomes in coronary disease. The New England Journal of Medicine, 376(14), 1332–1340. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1606148

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2023, February 21). Heart disease: Women and heart disease. CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/women.htm

Cleveland Clinic. (2019, April 15). Improving your health with fiber. Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/14400-improving-your-health-with-fiber

Getty Images. (2016). Candace cameron bure [Image]. Zimbio. https://www.zimbio.com/photos/Candace+Cameron+Bure/WEhretlQIXS/American+Heart+Association+Go+Red+Women+Red

Martin, C. B., Herrick, K. A., Sarafrazi, N., & Ogden, C. L. (2018, July 13). Attempts to lose weight among adults in the United States, 2013–2016. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db313.htm

Hall, K. D., & Kahan, S. (2018). Maintenance of lost weight and long-term management of obesity. The Medical clinics of North America, 102(1), 183–197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mcna.2017.08.012

Harrison, Christy. (2018, August 10). What is diet culture. Christy Harrison. https://christyharrison.com/blog/what-is-diet-culture

Kumar, M. M., & Dixon Docter, A. (2022). Fad diets and adolescents: A guide for clinicians, educators, coaches and trainers. Springer International Publishing AG.

McRae, M. P. (2017). Dietary fiber is beneficial for the prevention of cardiovascular disease: An umbrella review of meta-analyses. Journal of Chiropractic Medicine, 16(4), 289–299. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcm.2017.05.005

Pew Research Center. (2021, April 7). Social media fact sheet. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/

Sugar, J. (2020, April 13). If dieting makes you feel anxious, distracted, stressed, or depressed, experts explain why. Popsugar. https://www.popsugar.com/fitness/how-dieting-causes-stress-47337017?stream_view=1#photo-47369435

Tribole, E. & Resch, E. (2012). Intuitive eating: A revolutionary program that works (P. Ward, Narr.) [Audiobook]. Blackstone Audio, Inc.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. (2020). Nutrient intakes from food and beverages: Mean amounts consumed per individual, by gender and age, What We Eat in America, NHANES 2017-2018.

U.S. Department for Health and Human Services. (2021, February 17). Healthy eating and women. OASH: Office on Women’s Health. https://www.womenshealth.gov/healthy- eating/healthy-eating-and-women