Cleanse, but Make It Empowering : Day 1

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

By any accounting that actually matters to me, I am too old for this shit. But, here we are.

It’s summer. It’s getting hot in the northern hemisphere. Arms and legs, shoulders and bellies are all seeing the light of day. And even in my TV-free world, the messages about “summer bodies” are coming through. Even though I’ve spent most of the last year intentionally trying to eradicate diet culture from my life, that stuff rankles.

So I thought, what’s more powerful than a focused internal project? A focused internal project carried out in front of people.

And here we are. For the next number of days, I am going to come over here and write some words about what aspects of diet culture I’m trying to kick in the face today. The plan is to talk a little bit about the challenge, then draw a little word picture of the diet culture demon that I’m confronting. (I am grateful to Lynda Barry’s One! Hundred! Demons! for the inspiration.)

Let me be clear: I am not here to vanquish demons, just to quiet them. Even demons have their value. It’s just that, like fire, they are destructive when not respected and contained.

What is this “diet culture” thing?

I am painfully aware of the dire political moment we are in. Capitalism and the patriarchy…