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If you’re reading this, you have an internet connection. That means you view daily messaging about dieting, weight, and body image. We’re bombarded constantly. Magazines at the check-out aisle, pop up ads on websites, Instagram reels, and TikTok beauty influencers are all implanting the idea in your mind that you should – at all times – have “achieving bodily perfection” as a top priority. Apparently, it needs to be a top priority for absolutely everyone. Why should it be a priority? ….Because!
When I was growing up in the early 2000s, there was very little messaging to counter this idea. By now, there’s been a backlash in the form of movements like Health at Every Size and Fat Acceptance. Advocates of these movements have labeled the constant messaging about food and dieting “diet culture.” Diet culture is the widespread idea that it is healthy and admirable to restrict food and lose weight. It can lead to serious consequences, such as eating disorders. Those who oppose diet culture encourage people to love their bodies as is, celebrate their beauty, appreciate everything their body does for them, and so on. And it’s wonderful to have an opposing voice to push back on the nonsense.
The Problem with Messages and Counter-Messages
The problem is that we end up with both voices competing for attention in our minds. You might see yourself in the mirror and notice something that you could “improve” and feel awful about how you’re failing to achieve physical perfection. Then another voice will tell you, “What a terrible, anti-feminist thing to think! Don’t buy into the bullshit!” And now you feel awful about failing to love yourself adequately. The whole topic is still wrapped up in morality either way.
A Better Way to Escape Toxic Diet Culture
Here’s a better way to frame it. I’ve quoted Greg McKeown’s book, Essentialism, before on this site. In a nutshell, an essentialist approach seeks to focus energy intently only on what is most important. Most of what takes up our time and energy on a daily basis is, as McKeown points out, “noise.” It’s not relevant to our primary life goals, and therefore any time and energy spent on these pursuits takes away from what we can achieve towards our primary goals. By contrast, McKeown encourages us to focus on how we can make our highest contribution to the world.
In particular, I’ve written about how to use essentialism to narrow down your goals. To succeed in your main goals, you need stop wasting energy on things that are not as important to you. With that frame in mind, the goal of achieving physical perfection would absolutely make sense as a priority to certain people. Someone might have a goal to become a famous supermodel, or to be a champion bodybuilder. There is nothing “good” or “bad” about the goal itself, if it’s your main priority.
But I’m guessing most people reading this would not say that achieving physical perfection is their top priority or highest contribution they could make to the world. And with that in mind, you can recognize the messaging about “fixing” your flaws for what it is – noise. It’s not moral or immoral. It’s simply not your top priority, and therefore spending time and energy (and money!) on it is not a good use of your precious resources.
How to Move Forward with an Essentialist Approach
Finding your top priority in life and focusing on it takes an immense amount of work and discipline. It requires pruning away things that are appealing but not your main purpose. But once you’ve completed that process, you’ll find that noise like this can fade into the background as you’re consumed by things that actually matter to you.
Even if you haven’t yet done that work of fully embracing essentialism, I hope this reframe is helpful. When you’re close to being sucked into the vortex of self-judgment for physical “imperfections” as well as for caring about them, you can simply think, “This isn’t a good use of my time.”
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