Diet Culture and the Shrinking Disabled Woman


I first fixated on my body when I was 13 after my health teacher gave a PowerPoint presentation on portion control and its effect on weight. Showing us plastic bananas and apples and a slab of meat the size of a small fist, he lectured on how if we ate more than that, our stomachs would stretch, resulting in weight gain. I sat in the front row of the class because that was where the only desk that fit my wheelchair was. I was the only kid who used a wheelchair.

I was used to sticking out like a sore thumb, but in sixth grade, having leg surgery made matters worse. I gained weight from the six weeks of rest, and my doctor wasn’t pleased. But more than that, I was ashamed of my body.

Hearing all about food and weight in health class reinforced my belief that I must control my body. I could not trust my body to assess its own needs; I needed to manipulate it. This meant ignoring hunger and fullness cues and fatigue. At 13, my obsession with my body and preoccupation with food began.

The Excessive Weight of Diet Culture

Diet culture and the pressure to shrink infiltrate nearly every aspect of American culture — from magazine covers lining cash registers at the grocery store to casual lunchroom conversations between coworkers. As a physically disabled woman, however, I have felt the excessive weight of diet culture. I often consider how my weight affects others, like when they have to lift me into a car or help me up when I fall. I also think of how it affects my ability to maintain the level of independence I currently have. In order to be able to undress myself at night, I must swing my legs over a bench and use my abdominal muscles to bend to reach my shoes and wiggle off skinny jeans. If my stomach were any bigger, this task would be more difficult or even impossible. I exercise regularly in order to keep my muscles toned and strong, but I also have a history with eating disorders, which makes exercising complicated.

Exercise can develop into an addiction for people with eating disorders. According to an article in The International Journal of Mental Health & Addiction, “The practice of physical exercise can acquire an addictive characteristic.” In such cases, the person adopts a behavioral pattern that is rigid and inflexible, making it difficult to reduce the frequency, intensity, or time devoted to this activity even in the presence of negative consequences such as exercising while injured or ignoring professional or family responsibilities.

While quotes like “The only bad workout is the one you didn’t do” circulate on social media, they do not factor in that for some people, exercising can actually do more harm than good because people are so accustomed to the belief that exercising is good. As a result, these messages go unquestioned, and people who over-exercise go decades without recognizing their addiction or receiving treatment.

American culture views exercise and dieting as acts of self-discipline. These patterns of behavior are not only viewed as private acts of self-care, but also a debt we owe society. In a world that considers childhood obesity a form of child abuse, eating a balanced diet and exercising regularly, or at least, maintaining a weight that is considered “healthy,” are regarded as virtuous and even obligatory actions.

Instead of understanding weight and physical health as separate from one’s values, the lines between morality and perceived health have become muddied. A quick scroll through the comments on a plus-size model’s Instagram makes it clear that many people correlate fatness with unhealthy choices, and more importantly, immorality.

Unhealthy Exercise

According to the National Eating Disorders Association, exercise can become unhealthy when it “significantly interferes with important activities, occurs at inappropriate times or in inappropriate settings, or when the individual continues to exercise despite injury or other medical complications.” While exercise is typically associated with improved health, compulsive exercise can cause health issues such as bone density loss, the loss of menstrual cycles, muscle soreness, bone and joint pain, injury, altered resting heart rate, frequent illness and upper respiratory infections. These physical symptoms paint a picture of declining health instead of the stereotyped effects of exercise on the body.

Interestingly, my health teacher only spent one class period talking about eating disorders as opposed to four weeks of teaching us about exercise. Perhaps this was because he perceived “obesity” to be more prevalent than eating disorders, or maybe it was just an oversight.

Body image and diet culture are believed to affect disabled women, and especially visibly-disabled women, disproportionately. In an article in the Sociological Focus journal, assistive devices and exercise restriction are theorized to inhibit a woman’s ability to meet conventional beauty standards. The article also chronicles a research study that analyzed the relationship that physically disabled women have with their bodies. The study found that disabled women thought the ideal body was “not misshapen,” “firm,” “looks stronger, has muscle tone,” “not full-figured,” “perfect little bodies,” “muscular definition,” and “good athletic shape, toned up, looks like a model.”

Alarmingly, some women even mentioned “anorexically thin” as an ideal body type. I found this wording concerning because it places appearance over health. For someone to be “anorexically thin,” or to use a less offensive term, “emaciated,” one must be severely undernourished and not have a healthy body fat percentage. Conversely, it is rare to hear people revere what the medical field deems “obese” bodies as an ideal to strive for. This suggests that body and “health” ideals are not truly about one’s health, but instead about appearances; namely, appearing thin.

I Am Enough

Erica-Mones-diet-culture

Within my own recovery journey, I have to continually face the reality that my need for control over food and my body is not healthy and was never in the pursuit of health. Instead, it was an attempt to make my disabled body a little more socially acceptable (i.e. smaller). More than that, my eating disorder stems from the shame of being dependent on others to live. I find that diet culture and its not-quite-distant cousin, the health and fitness culture, are just extensions of the American myth of rugged individualism. That is to say that there is an unspoken contract that if we discipline our bodies through diet and exercise and maintain a culturally ideal (i.e., thin) body, we can achieve success and independence from disease and disability.

Throughout the past four years, I have had to unlearn not only the pervasive messages of diet culture (that even appear as “Calories Count!” stickers on vending machines) that thinness equals success, but also society’s ableist ideals that I be independent. I have confronted the reality that I will never meet conventional beauty or even success standards, and through that, I have learned that I am enough.

Erica Mones is a 23-year-old disabled writer.  She writes mostly about mental health and disability.  She received her BA in classical civilizations and writing from Loyola University Maryland. Visit her blog to find more of her writing.

The accompanying illustration is by Mary Ellen Pataro/maryellenpataro.com.

 


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Victoria
1 year ago

I relate so much to this. The messages of fatphobia and ableism are a double-whammy for disabled or ill women.