“People need to be valued because of who they are”: Self-conception and strategies of resistance in women who challenge weight-loss diet culture

Abstract

This paper explores how the self-beliefs of women who have rejected weight-loss diet culture inform their strategies of resistance. We conducted a qualitative survey inviting participants to share methods they have used to challenge diet culture. One hundred and twelve women ( Mage  =  37.01, SD  =  10.54) provided complete responses. Most were heterosexual (72%) and resided in Australia (59%). Our thematic analysis generated two themes: “diet culture is internalised, dismantling it is personal,” which was characterised by participants’ self-beliefs or self-identification, and the personal strategies they used to counter diet culture; and “diet culture is social, relationships are sites of resistance,” which reflected participants’ beliefs about the source of personal worth, as well as relational strategies they enacted in their personal and professional lives, and in their interactions with authority figures. Efforts to assist women in challenging diet culture could be strengthened by recognising the implications of immersion in such a culture for an individual's relational self and their perceptions of self-worth, and by harnessing the power of women's relationships with each other. This paper contributes to the feminist psychological literature on women's inequalities and their relationships with food and their bodies, illuminating connections between activism, healthcare, and everyday experience.