Diet Culture and Politics: Our Relationship with Food and Bodies

Blog, Written by Heather Alden

July 20, 2026

The intersection of diet culture and politics

Eating disorders don’t exist in a vacuum. They develop within political, cultural and economic systems which shape what we eat and how we feel about our bodies. Diet culture and politics go hand in hand.

Politics influence everything from where our food comes from and what food we can afford to which foods are celebrated, accepted, moralised and appropriated. Understanding and exploring the link between diet culture and politics can help us reframe how we think about food and our bodies in a more compassionate and liberated way.

Politics shape eating disorder narratives

Political systems rooted in capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy also shape conversations about eating disorders.

Stereotypes about who eating disorders affect and how they present can create barriers to many people accessing support and invalidate individuals’ experiences. One of the most persistent examples is the stereotype that eating disorders only affect “young, white, underweight” women. However, this reflects racialised, gendered and classist assumptions embedded in healthcare systems and media. For many people these systems cause harm, making it harder for people of colour, men and people identifying as queer to access support and erases them from conversations about eating disorders (National alliance for eating disorders).

Politics shape beauty standards

Not only do political forces shape who can access support but also the beauty standards we may feel pressure to live up to. Diet culture, fatphobia, fitness industries and the patriarchy all reinforce Eurocentric beauty standards that equate ‘successful womanhood’ with being smaller.

Vogue illustrate this clearly. In their 2026 Size inclusivity report, they reported that just 0.3% of looks for autumn/ winter 2026 represented ‘plus-size’ models. The largest size most London fashion week brands offer is a UK size 14. They commented on how the lack of representation on runways presents against “a backdrop of rising conservatism, obsessive self-optimisation, and growing use of GLP-1s”.

Yet, in 2026 Vogue has released 32 features on supplements and features on wellness trends like protein coffee, bone broth and ‘resetting’ your appetite. We are encouraged to accept our bodies whilst being sold an endless number of supplements, superfoods and diets. When the products we are sold don’t work, instead of questioning the legitimacy of these very normalised ‘wellness trends’, we assume it is our own lack of discipline. But these products and trends aren’t always designed to make us feel good, they are designed by an industry which profits of our not feeling thin enough, healthy enough or good enough.

To really move towards liberation, we need to challenge these embedded norms and practices instead of internalising the narratives they feed us. This means valuing joyful, culturally rooted eating practices over diet culture and prioritising body liberation over self-hatred.

Our food choices are shaped by our political environments

Our eating habits are not only based on instinct and preference. They are often conditioned by the world around us. Public health messaging, social media, marketing, racism and socioeconomic factors can all impact our food choices.

Politics influences who have access to fresh foods, animal welfare, food prices and public health policies. In the UK, poverty is one of the largest barriers to many families meeting ‘healthy’ eating guidelines. Yet, public health efforts continue to blame chronic disease on diet, body weight and individual choice, conveniently ignoring the impact of social inequalities, welfare cuts and poverty.

Public health policies can also cause harm. Calorie labelling was introduced in England in April 2022 to help people make ‘more informed, healthier decisions’ when eating out. Despite evidence that calorie labelling policies in North America and Australia were of limited effectiveness (Clarke et al., 2025). The policy raised concerns about potential harm for people affected by eating disorders. As a result, Scotland put a pause on introducing mandatory menu calorie labelling. Since the policy was introduced evidence from England suggests the policy has no positive impact on the general population (Essman, 2025), but can be triggering and facilitate eating disorder behaviours for people affected by eating disorders (Trompeter, 2025).

This is just one example of how reductive public health policies can cause more harm than benefit. With many people drawing connections between this intervention, diet culture and politics.

Systemic trauma and eating disorders

Eating disorders can often arise as stress or trauma responses. Systemic trauma is when trauma arises from our environments and institutions. Diet culture, misinformation, discrimination, racism, weight stigma, homophobia and ableism can contribute to or cause trauma. Eating disorders can serve as survival mechanisms or a way of feeling ‘in control’.

When dieting is encouraged in your social circles, healthcare systems equate health with body size or certain foods are labelled good or bad, it can deeply affect our relationships with food, our bodies and others.

What we are told isn’t always true

It can be helpful to think about how many mainstream nutrition messages aren’t always true or inclusive. For example:

Most healthcare research is conducted on men, meaning advice does not always account for women or gender-diverse people.
The Eatwell plate present western diets as the norm, overlooking cultural and religious eating patterns.
Research shows BMI and weight aren’t good indicators of health (Calogero et al., 2019).
Public health strategies focus on reductive health-messaging rather than addressing systemic causes of health inequalities.
Foods can be ‘ultra-processed’ and nutritious. It can be more harmful to cut out or restrict certain foods from our diets.
‘High protein’ doesn’t mean a food is better for us (or for the planet).

For anyone recovering from an eating disorder, it can be empowering to recognise and externalise this problem. To draw the link between diet culure and politics, notice the biases in healthcare, social media or wider society. This can be a helpful part of eating disorder recovery.

Dietary guidelines are political

Food guidelines often reflect political values over science. The new US food pyramid is an example of this. It suggests that meat and animal products should make up the greatest part of people’s diets, and carbohydrates and processed foods should be limited. A clear example of how diet culture and politics are tied up.

This reflects an extreme version of a traditional western diet, presenting western diets as the standard and excluding:

Vegans and Vegetarians
Ethnic or religious communities where meat is rarely or not at all consumed
Cultures where rice, soy, starchy foods, beans and lentils are staple foods
Those who can’t afford a meat-heavy diet

‘Healthy’ eating guidelines, including the Eatwell guide, are designed with weight control, restriction and western ideals in mind. They are not inclusive of people of colour and people affected by eating disorders. This can make eating well feel overcomplicated, it also highlights how there is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to eating.

Food can be a tool to push political ideologies

Vogue highlighted how the stark lack of representation of ‘plus-size’ bodies on runways sits within “a backdrop of rising conservatism, obsessive self-optimisation, and growing use of GLP1s”.

These themes also appear in food culture. The environmental charity Hubbub has also highlighted the link between carnivore or high-protein diets and the rise in far-right politics. This connection is partly explained by the way the ‘manosphere’ frames high meat consumption as a sign of strength and masculinity.

Diets and gender norms

Since 2022, influential figures like Joe Rogan, Andrew Tate and Elon Musk have promoted carnivore diets, but these endorsements are frequently interwoven with misogyny and climate-related misinformation and are amplified by social media algorithms. This nutrition misinformation often exaggerates protein requirements, dismisses plant-based protein and reinforces harmful gender norms affecting our relationship with food.

Meanwhile plant-based diets are often seen as feminine. UK government data from 2025 shows women are 50% more likely to be vegetarian or plant-based than men (YouGov, 2025). This gender divide reflects online discourses, in which many men are adopting carnivore or high protein diets and ‘trad wives’ champion making food from scratch as part of a conservative ideal about domestic femininity. This return to traditional gender norms pushed through narratives around food, also reflects ‘rising conservatism’ with research from channel 4 in 2025 finding that nearly half of males aged 13-27 felt efforts for women’s equality ‘have gone too far’.

Returning to this ‘traditional’ way of eating might also be encouraging us to return to more traditional values. Values which perpetuate white supremacy, male dominance and heteronormativity. This highlights how food, body image and gender norms are deeply rooted in political ideologies. Diet culture and politics go hand in hand with misogyny. Understanding these connections can help us see that eating, health and body image are deeply conditioned into us through our political and cultural environments.

A final note on liberating ourselves from these systems to support recovery

Our political environments can contribute to our exposure to environmental stressors. These environmental stressors might include marginalisation, racism, sexism, homophobia and poverty, which can impact our health.

Understanding the systems that shape experiences, eating disorders and trauma can help us challenge them and think differently about food, health and bodies. Fat liberation activists, body liberation movements and food justice organisations are already trying to change the narratives we have around food and our bodies.

Diet culture, weight stigma, moralising food messages and social media can create food rules and shame; however, it is important to recognise:

Your worth is innate; it is not dependent on whether you eat, act or look a certain way
Food is culture, community, identity and connection.
Your body is not the problem, the problem is the environment which creates these body pressures.

Blog Written by Heather Alden

Heather is a dietetic student passionate about accessible and weight-inclusive dietetic practice. She is currently completing her dissertation on the impact of calorie labelling on menus in the UK. She has a growing interest in how our environments and public health policies shape our relationships with food and health inequities.