Of all the living species on Earth, modern humans are by far the most finicky eaters. It’s not just that we eat our food cooked (or mostly cooked). That’s just how our digestive systems have evolved to extract nutrients from food without taking on excessive harmful bacteria or animal pathogens. But even despite that, most modern humans (i.e from the 1950s and onwards) are extremely choosy about what they eat.
Over the years, as people began to put more effort into their physical health, the diet fad emerged. People began trying out different types of diets to help them lose or gain weight according to their needs. While a healthy diet is an important part of mental and physical wellbeing, most people simply follow diets in their quest to achieve the “perfect” body. They often put their bodies through a lot in order to get to the body standards they want to achieve. In many cases, this body standard is fairly unrealistic for the majority of us, even without flattering angles and photoshops. What is our relationship with diets, and what are the outcomes so many of us fail to notice? Read on to find out more.
The Early Diet Fads
In many ways, the 1950s were transformative times just like the ones we live in today. Television had finally penetrated the market enough for networks to invest in high-quality content, gathering even more TV users. And of course, this is also the period that gave birth to television ads and commercials. Of course, these were nothing like the commercials on modern-day Spectrum Cable TV packages. But it was still a huge change, with businesses and brands falling over themselves to showcase their products to consumers right in their homes. Arguably, this was the beginning of American consumerism.
Around this time, among tons of other commercial products, processed foods were introduced to the public. Vegetable oil and margarine, in particular, were very popular, leading to a rise in obesity rates thanks to their fat-rich content. Of course, since consumer regulations weren’t as tight as they are now, many sellers simply glossed over the harmful side effects of their processed products. Others were simply unaware since science wasn’t as advanced back then as it is now either. Regardless, the rapid rise in obesity alarmed people, who began trying out diets based on dubious and sometimes false information. While people were finally thinking about their calorie intake and cholesterol levels, this was just the beginning. The diet journey really took off from this point onwards.
The Poor Body Image Problem
Body image dysmorphia is a serious condition that many people suffer from. It often goes undiagnosed, especially among people with borderline body image dysmorphia. If you’re having trouble looking at yourself in the mirror and accepting what you see, you could be suffering from it as well. The human brain has significant quantities of cholesterol in it, which can often be depleted by cholesterol-free diets. These depleted brain cholesterol levels can often cause humans to develop a distorted reality around them. They may feel extremely insecure about an average body, or overly confident about unhealthy body weight. In any case, sticking to these unhealthy diets can actually start a vicious cycle where your body worsens along with your image dysmorphia. The constant bombardment of perfect bodies in edited or airbrushed images only adds to the problem by offering unattainable standards.
Rapidly Switching Diets
Humans aren’t exactly known for being the most attentive of living species. But over the years, our behavioral patterns have grown exceedingly spontaneous, even by our standards. This is manifested in many parts of our lives, such as inane internet trends and even our diet fads. Younger individuals are often prone to rapidly trying out a series of diets. Far from helping you get healthier, these frequent changes can very well have the opposite impact on your body. Unsustainable diets like the popular Keto diet and the unbalanced intake of foods they prescribe can often have disastrous effects on you, severely impairing your mental and physical health.
Conclusion
The purpose of this blog is not to discount the efforts people put into maintaining a healthier lifestyle or altering their current unhealthy lifestyle. However, the culmination of events up to this point hint that maybe we’re approaching diets and healthier lifestyles incorrectly. Conventional and social media, as well as our socially accepted norms, play a significant part in creating unrealistic body standards that neither men nor women can sustainably achieve.
As our lives continue to progressively move towards the “flex culture”, it further impacts our inherent insecurities, such as the ones we have about our appearance. Not only is this hurting our self-confidence, but it can also impact social abilities to the point where you’re no longer comfortable in public. Do you want support calls on the Spectrum phone number to be your only form of social interaction? If not, you need to start paying better attention to the types of diets you follow, and how sustainable they are over the long term. Be kinder to your body instead of forcing it into shapes it was never naturally designed to be in.
