Diet Culture Still Sucks—Even If We Don’t See It Yet

People love to point out how awful diet culture was in the 80s and 90s—and they’re not wrong. The low-fat everything, the obsessive calorie counting, the glorification of thigh gaps and heroin chic... it was 'ick'. From today’s perspective, it’s easy to look back and call out how bad it was.

But here’s the thing about hindsight: it’s clear. We've all got 20:20 vision when we look back. You can connect the dots when the picture is already drawn. You can critique the patterns once they’ve played out. It’s like watching a documentary about a bad trend and thinking, How did we ever think that was normal?

Well, because it was normal. At least, it felt normal at the time. It was normalised by media, by our friends and family, by society at large.

That’s the power of culture. When something is embedded in the culture, it feels familiar, acceptable, even good. It becomes the normal, or the thing we strive for to feel normal. We don’t always notice the problematic bits while we’re living it—because it’s everywhere. It’s in the media, the advertising, the casual conversations. It’s in what we celebrate, what we joke about, what we compliment. And when something feels that ordinary, we don’t think to question it.

Which is exactly why we have to. Because diet culture didn’t disappear. It rebranded. It updated it's vocabulary and found new distribution streams. It changed with us.

Now it’s “clean eating,” “wellness,” “body goals,” “longevity,” and “body optimisation.” It’s protein-added everything, trackers and apps, biohacks and green powders. It’s influencers using words like “balance” and “discipline,” while still pushing restriction and control. Preaching body positivity while still encouraging factions and comparison. It’s rejecting science while using science-sounding terms for legitimacy.

It’s sneaky, but it’s also socially acceptable. It’s part of the groups we think in, the echo chambers we form in our online and real-life communities. And because it speaks the language of health and self-improvement, it’s harder to recognise when it’s still diet culture underneath.

So even though we’ve moved on from low-fat yogurt and diet whatever else, diet culture is still very much here—it’s just wearing new clothes and maybe using a softer tone of voice, and saying words that feel right, right now.

We’re living in a new version of diet culture, and it’s harder to spot because it looks modern, sounds “empowering,” and feels like common sense. But guess what? It felt like that in the 80s and 90s, too. The products, the programs, and the judgement all felt normal at the time.

And that’s exactly why we need to stay vigilant. Because culture always feels normal while it’s happening. That’s what makes it powerful—and what makes it dangerous. The only way to see it clearly is to step outside of it. To zoom out. To ask better questions:

• Who profits from this?

• Who gets left out?

• Who gets praised—and why?

• What are we being taught to value in ourselves and others?

Yes, diet culture in the 80s and 90s was extreme and damaging. But let’s not wait another 20 years to look back on today and realise what was happening. We’re living through a different version of the same story. And history isn’t just something we reflect on—it’s something we shape. Right now. Every day. But to do that we need to critically think, make an effort to reflect and challenge the status quo.

So, if something feels a little off, a little obsessive, or a little too focused on perfection, or too good to be true, trust your gut. Question it. Talk about it. Call it out. In yourself, not jsut in others. Because, the only way we change culture is by noticing it first. And, actually, you don’t even need to wait for that feeling to question it. That’s what critical thinking is. Thinking about the thinking, even if it feels right, stops us from being taken advantage of.