International Day Without Diets: Against The Obsession With Ideal Weight

Today, May 6, and since 1992 International No Diet Day is celebrated, an initiative that was born in the United Kingdom by Mary Evans Young. There were several triggers that led her to be the creator of this day: the viewing of a television program about surgical operations on overweight people, the news of a teenager who decides to commit suicide after being mocked for her weight in her peer group, and having suffered from anorexia nervosa herself.

Mary Evans then decides to work on a campaign called “Fat Woman Bites Back”, which translated into Spanish means “The fat women bite back”.

Over time, more countries have joined this initiative that focuses on key points related to the pressure that women receive about body image thereby denouncing the creation of beauty canons that are far from reality.

Why does International No Diet Day appear?

Some of the objectives that this campaign aims to pursue are the following:

These central objectives that we intend to remember on this day are interrelated with other factors that directly or indirectly attack the creation of a positive image towards one’s own body, as well as towards that of other people. Some examples are invitations to follow the so-called “miracle diets.” in which some of them recommend food restriction.

Acceptance of one’s own body

The use of food supplements that replace food intake, the abuse of laxatives and diuretics to achieve a feeling of “emptiness”… The obsession with reaching an “ideal weight” without taking into account its natural fluctuations and one’s own body constitution. The custom of performing the “bikini operation” anticipates, on the one hand, that to show the body it must be in a certain way, as well as that changes must be made to it so that it can be shown without complexes.

These are some of the different guidelines and attempts to market products that highlight the “need” to reach a weight in which different personal and social expectations are projected, which in many cases are not finally satisfied with the modification of the body or a part of it.

It is necessary, therefore, to highlight the importance of preventive measures aimed at stop the factors that promote body dissatisfaction

A positive attitude towards one’s body

From the family, it is advisable to promote positive attitudes both towards one’s own body and towards that of others, and promote a healthy lifestyle around food so that it, among others, does not become a stressful agent around which manage personal and interpersonal conflicts.

From the rest of the socializing and community agents: Show rejection of fatphobic attitudes, do not allow discrimination around the physique from school and the work environment, promote a critical attitude towards cultural mandates that threaten body diversity and related gender mandates. with corporality, eliminate the use of images far from reality that exalt extreme thinness, and in the manufacture of clothing, support body diversity with its different shapes, sizes and heights.

These are some of the many measures that can promote the creation, development and maintenance of good body self-esteem.