Dear Corporate Health Initiatives: Just Stop
My Soap Box About Diets and Anxiety
Dear corporate structures,
Please stop promoting diets and exercise as self care. Please stop giving free gym membership and wellness coaches. Please stop ‘health challenges’ that track weight or BMI. Just. STOP.
When you do this you are promoting lies. You are cosigning onto shame and failure. You are agreeing with a culture that says healthy = thin.
Well we don’t say that! We don’t mean thin!
Yeah, maybe you don’t mean thin. But you definitely mean ‘not too big.’ And that right there is the problem.
You are saying “it’s okay to have insecurities! Here’s how to fix them.”
Not, “it’s okay to feel insecure. Here’s how you can find support for those feelings.”
Not even, “it’s great you want to improve your health. Here’s a resource talking about separating health promoting behaviors and self esteem.”
Instead, you’re basically say, “All my employees would like time to become slim thicc while also working 60 hour weeks for a 40 hour salary. Here’s a free gym membership!”
That sucks. It’s a stupid band aid to burn out. It’s a stupid band aid to improve health.
You’re bad at it. Because you are a corporation. You do not understand the intricate, important link between mental and physical health.
You certainly don’t know that diets and exercising for weight loss is a set up for failure. You don’t know how to support people’s well being.
Cuz you’re trying to manage employees. That’s okay. That is your job. So please stop swerving out of your lane.
Even if you have employees asking for this type of challenge. Even if your employees tell you, ‘I’d like this for self care.’
You know what - I bet they also told you other things they want for self care. I bet they gave you other feedback about how to better distribute workload. How the team can be more efficient. How they need more autonomy and better pay.
Those things are in your lane. Your employees physical and mental health is not in your lane. So please stop trying to influence it with health challenges.
Sincerely,
A Fed Up Therapist
Welcome To My Soap Box
You’re reading this, and so I would like to remind you that you may stop reading this at any time. But I’m not gonna stop being LIT UP about this.
So You Wanna Gain Weight
Wait, no I don’t. I’m starting to eat clean so I can lose a few pounds and feel comfortable in my own skin!
Okay, well. Wanna guarantee weight GAIN? Go on a freaking diet.
Diets fail y’all. Straight up fail. They work in the short term.
But after a year we give up on the diet. After two years we’ve gained BACK at least half the weight we lost. Most of us gain back exactly what we lost, plus 2-5 pounds.
Diet Culture Thrives In Helping Professions
Gahhhh. It makes me so frustrated. You know where I see diets engrained in culture? Helping professions. For most of my professional life, I’ve worked in doctor’s offices, law office’s, therapy clinics, and an elementary school. Filled to the brim with people (mostly women!) working hard to help people.
And working even harder to stay on that diet. Or getting ready for the new diet. Or praising their coworker for ‘being so good!’ Or complaining that they need to ‘get it together’ before summer.
By the way, when I say diet, I mean the conscious manipulation of someone’s food intake and exercise execution to be thinner.
Sometimes I’ll tell someone that I don’t like to talk about diets. And I’ll get the response - “Oh, it’s not a diet! It’s ….”
a habit.
It’s clean eating.
It’s being healthy.
It’s cutting out less nutritious foods.
Whatever dude.
It’s a diet. If you’re tracking what you’re eating, through points, calories, macros, an app, a scale.
If you’re reading labels of foods because you are eliminating certain ingredients.
Or need a certain ratio of carbs to fats.
Hun. You’re on a diet.
And if you’re on a diet, please just own it. I’m so sick of people calling it a lifestyle. It’s not a lifestyle! You’ve done it for tops six weeks! And if I ask you to truly imagine yourself in five years, with a toddler and a career, still reading labels…you know you won’t be doing that.
It’s a diet. And diets freeeeaking suck.
We’ve already covered the unfathomable fact that they straight up DON’T. WORK. We consistently buy into this thing thinking that the reason it failed was our fault.
Failing A Diet Is Your Fault?
Imagine buying a phone. It’s an amazing phone. It’ll change your life. People will love talking to you through this phone. You’ll look beautiful in photos with this phone. You’ll feel confident and energized with this phone.
And within six weeks, it starts bugging out. You think, I’ll just do the ‘ole shut-down-restart-thang.
And it starts working again! But this time for three weeks.
Maybe you’re so dedicated to this phone you take it back to the store and ask someone to help you figure it out.
But honestly. You need to be able to text people without it glitching. You need to have a reliable GPS. You need to be able to check email for work. Soooooooo you give up on the new phone.
Is that your fault?
Were you just not dedicated enough to the phone?
Were you not disciplined enough in recharging it at exactly the right time?
Or maybe was the phone just…kinda crappy after all.
Your Diet Is Just Kinda Crappy
Because it’s focused on all the wrong things.
Most people use diets as a way to manage their feelings. They feel stuck. They feel ugly and unattractive. They feel lonely and bored. And here comes …75 hard. Keto. WW. Macros. Whole30. A system with GUARANTEES.
OMG how we lerve a guarantee. As humans in general. And also as helping professionals.
So often at work we’re working our asses off for no guarantees. Almost shouting into the void, in the hopes we’re making a difference. That our day to day, slogging it out, matters.
And here comes this shiny system. With guarantees. Promising us a world where we feel confident. Energized. Comfortable in our own skin. Where we enjoy putting on clothes and going out. Where we look at photos of ourselves with friends and feel proud. Where we know we could find a man tonight if we wanted.
All of those feelings are important. All of those desires are important. And believing a diet will get you there is universal.
It’s also wrong.
Those feelings. And your food intake. Have nothing to do with one another. There is a weak correlation at best.
But But But My Health!
Oh, okay, you wanna talk about health. Let’s talk about it.
Did you know that 1 in 4 dieters will go on to develop a full blown eating disorder.
The most deadly mental health diagnosis.
If I told you that 1 in 4 runners will develop lung cancer…
I just don’t think we’d risk becoming runners. We’d find another way to enjoy being outside and exercising.
But But But Seriously…My Health!
Awesome, you’re interested in health and longevity.
You want to be kicking ass in your eighties. Surrounded by grandchildren. Or surrounded by a beautiful lake that you swim in every morning before painting in the garden.
Or maybe right now you have your pill container that you have to pre-fill every Sunday. And every Sunday you think “I can’t be this old. Surely I don’t need all these medications for cholesterol and blood pressure and sleep.”
Health promoting behaviors are amazing. I want you kicking ass in your eighties. I want you to know that the meds you’re taking are because you need them.
Health promoting behaviors are a great predictor of longevity. Far more accurate than weight.
Health promoting behaviors include:
Not smoking.
Moderating alcohol consumption.
Eating a variety of plants and animal products.
Moving your body for 30 minutes, 5 days/week.
And honestly, didn’t you know that already?
It’s common sense. It’s also not a beautifully packaged system with success stories. It also doesn’t guarantee your confidence to soar. Or that you’ll match with a hottie on your app tonight. Or that you’ll feel comfortable being yourself.
Cuz that’s not what those behaviors are ever going to do. They will help you live longer. Recover from stress faster. Sleep better. Important things!
Side Note
Enjoyable movement helps improve body image. Now, hear me. Not the jog in your neighborhood where you shame yourself every step of the way. Or the Jillian Michaels 30 day shred where you just picture how great your abs will look.
But a form of movement you love (a dance class. Ping Pong. Hiking. Jiu Jitsu) will also help you love your body.
You Want To Feel Beautiful
Or comfortable. Or confident. Or energized. Or peaceful. There are ways to work on those things. To see real improvement in them. And it cannot come from a scale, a body fat percentage, or a diet.
Exhausted women with big hearts usually like to add things to their to do list. I know what I’ll do…I’ll also go on a diet so my husband finds me super attractive. So I’ll enjoy being in a bathing suit in the pool with my kids. So I’ll feel cute in my scrubs at work.
The Good News
You can have those things. You can feel beautiful, confident, and peaceful. You can have a relationship where the sex is really good. You can enjoy being in a bathing suit by the pool with friends. You can feel cute in your scrubs at work.
Without losing weight.
Without going on a diet.
You can find freedom. Huge joy. Fulfillment. Harmony.
You just can’t find them in a diet.
Because the premise of a diet is:
1. You’re eating the wrong things/ the wrong way/ at the wrong times.
2. If you eat the right things/ in the right way/ at the right time, you’ll look and feel better.
3. If after eating right you don’t look or feel better…then it must not have been truly right.
And all of that is just bullshit. There is no one ‘right way to eat.’ Food cannot fix feelings. And if you’re diet fails it’s because your diet sucks. Not because you suck.
Need support with those feelings?
In online counseling, I can equip you with tools and offer a mindset that decreases burn out, relieves anxiety, and gives you refreshment and authenticity. Schedule a free 15 minute consultation today and empower yourself to honor your humanity and your calling!
