Deciding What to Wear Without Diet Culture Whispering in Your Ear

How many hours of your life have you spent worrying about what you should look like before you even leave the house?

Not what you need to wear for warmth, comfort, or practicality… but what you “should” wear to look smaller, more toned, more “flattering”, more acceptable.

That low-level anxiety about your outfit is rarely about clothes. It’s about diet culture, patriarchy and a lifetime of being told that your body is a project – and your clothes are the packaging.

This blog is an invitation to step out of that. To let getting dressed become easier, more political (in a good way), and more you.

Diet Culture in Your Wardrobe

Diet culture doesn’t just live in meal plans and fitness trackers – it lives in your wardrobe too.

It shows up as:

• A pile of “goal weight” clothes that you punish yourself with.

• The belief that some bodies “can’t wear” certain items (bikinis, sleeveless tops, bodycon dresses, bright colours).

• The idea that “flattering” always means “slimming” – as if taking up less space is the ultimate goal.

• Panic when a waistband feels tighter, rather than curiosity about whether you’re comfortable.

  
  

These aren’t neutral preferences. They come from a culture that treats thinness as moral virtue, fatness as failure, and women’s bodies as something to be visually managed rather than lived in.

Fashion, Feminism and the Patriarchal Gaze

You were not born thinking about whether your thighs looked “too big” in jeans. You were taught to think this way.

From a feminist perspective, all that daily body-anxiety is not an accident; it’s useful to a system that prefers women busy policing themselves rather than taking up space in other ways (career, pleasure, politics, rest).

Clothing becomes one of patriarchy’s favourite tools:

• You’re told to be “put together” but not “trying too hard”.

• To dress “appropriately” but also be attractive.

• To be visible enough to please, invisible enough not to be “too much”.

And if you’ve ever stood in front of the mirror pulling at your clothes, you know how effective this is at draining time, energy and self-worth.

Seeing this clearly is not about never enjoying aesthetics or style again. It’s about reclaiming who you’re getting dressed for.

Body Confidence: Not Loving Every Angle

Body confidence doesn’t mean loving every inch of your body at all times. That’s just another impossible standard.

Instead, try redefining it as:

Feeling entitled to comfort, dignity and self-expression in the body you have today.

That might look like:

• Wearing clothes that fit the body you actually live in, not the one you’re hoping to have.

• Choosing fabrics and shapes that feel kind on your skin rather than harsh, tight or scratchy.

• Allowing yourself colour, pattern, fun – even if your body doesn’t match the images in fashion campaigns.

• Letting “I like this” carry more weight than “Do I look smaller in this?”

You don’t owe the world a visually edited version of yourself.

Letting Go of the “Shoulds”

A lot of dressing stress comes from invisible “rules” we’ve absorbed. For example:

• I should dress to minimise my stomach/arms/bum.

• I should always look smart and put together.

• I shouldn’t wear X at my age/size/shape.

• I should dress more femininely/sexily/neutral/”on trend”.

Most of these rules serve someone else’s comfort, not yours.

Try asking:

• Who benefits from me believing this “should”?

• Would I say this to someone I love?

• What do I actually want to feel like today – physically and emotionally?

You get to decide your own dressing criteria: comfort, temperature, practicality, self-expression, mood, cultural context, your values. “Looking smaller” doesn’t have to make the list.

Style as Self-Respect, Not Self-Surveillance

You are allowed to care about how you look. Enjoying clothes, colour, makeup or jewellery can be genuinely joyful and creative. The problem isn’t caring; it’s suffering.

A helpful distinction:

Self-surveillance dressing:

• Constant mirror-checking.

• Dressing to pre-empt criticism.

• Choosing discomfort if it makes you look “better”.

• Feeling like your body is an object to fix.

Self-respect dressing:

• Checking in with your body’s comfort first.

• Dressing in ways that support what you’re doing that day.

• Allowing pleasure and playfulness where possible.

• Letting your body be the subject, not the object – a home, not a display.

A Simple Feminist Reboot: How to Decide What to Wear Without Diet Culture's Opinion

Here’s a straightforward experiment you can try next time you get dressed, to gently unhook from diet culture and the patriarchy’s gaze. Who'd have thought we needed help with deciding what to wear without being affected by diet- culture.

1. Start with what you like and what’s suitable.

Think about the occasion and the conditions (work, walk, friends, temperature, weather).

Now mentally run through the clothes you already have and ask:

• What feels comfortable?

• What is practical/functional for what I’m doing today?

• What do I actually like – not what I think I “should” wear?

As you do this, notice any urge to conform for the wrong reasons (to hide your body, to impress people whose opinions don’t really matter, to punish yourself). You don’t have to act on those urges; just notice them and gently re-orient to comfort, function and authentic preference.

2. Put the outfit on without looking at yourself.

This is the radical bit. Get dressed without going straight to the mirror.

Let your body’s experience come first, before your brain starts scanning for “flaws”.

3. Check comfort and function – not appearance.

Once everything is on, do a comfort and practicality check:

• Can you move freely? Sit, bend, walk?

• Are your shoes comfortable enough for what you’ll actually be doing (standing, walking, stairs)?

• Are you warm/cool enough?

• Anything digging in, rubbing or needing constant adjustment?

If something fails the comfort test, change that item – again without making it about your body being wrong. The problem is the garment, not you.

4. Then… go out of the door.

When you’ve ticked “comfortable” and “functional”, that’s it. Outfit decided. No more mirror-audits, no more trying on six alternatives, no more rehearsing imagined criticism. Just go.

And as you step out, consider this:

Think of all the time, energy and emotional effort you’d save if getting dressed was this simple most days. All of that freed-up life can be put to other deserving uses – like you.