Why Our Obsession with Body Size Isn’t About Health: Diet Culture, Misogyny & the Feminist Power of Intuitive Eating

For decades, society has taught us that caring about our weight is the same as caring about our health.

But when we look closer, we discover something very different.

Our cultural obsession with thinness has far more to do with diet culture, misogyny, and the male gaze than with genuine wellbeing. And the solution is not another diet — it’s Intuitive Eating, an approach rooted in evidence, body autonomy, and feminist liberation.

In this article, we’ll explore:

• Why body size and aesthetics aren’t health indicators

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• How diet culture uses shame to control women

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• The role of misogyny in fuelling weight obsession

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• Why Intuitive Eating is a health-based, feminist alternative

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• How reclaiming your appetite is an act of personal and political freedom

Table of Contents

• Body Size, Weight & Aesthetics: What We Think Is About Health… Isn’t

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• What Diet Culture Really Is (and What It Isn’t)

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• How Misogyny Shapes Body Ideals

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• Why Aesthetics ≠ Health

• Intuitive Eating as a Health-Focused, Feminist Approach

• Why Reclaiming Your Appetite Is a Political Act

• Final Thoughts: Your Body Was Never the Problem

1. Body Size, Weight & Aesthetics: What We Think Is About Health… Isn’t

Keywords: body size, weight stigma, diet culture, body image

Most people genuinely believe that striving for a smaller body is part of “improving health.”

But this belief didn’t originate from medical science or physiology — it came from culture.

Historically, the thin ideal is tied to systems of:

• misogyny

• white beauty standards

• class hierarchy

• and the commercial interests of the diet and wellness industries

These systems shape how we see ourselves long before we ever think to question them.

2. What Diet Culture Really Is (and What It Isn’t)

Keywords: diet culture explained, dieting, weight loss industry

Diet culture isn’t just “being on a diet.”

It’s the entire belief system that says:

• Smaller = healthier

• Smaller = more disciplined

• Smaller = more attractive

• Smaller = more worthy

  
  

This system thrives when women feel:

• “not enough”

• ashamed of eating

• guilty for resting

• afraid of weight gain

• disconnected from hunger signals

These insecurities translate into billions of pounds spent on supplements, plans, apps, programs and “fixes.”

Diet culture exists because women were taught to distrust their bodies — and businesses profit from that distrust.

3. How Misogyny Shapes Body Ideals

Keywords: misogyny, patriarchy, body image pressure

The thin ideal was not created for health reasons.

It was created to control women’s behaviour, time, attention, energy and self-perception.

For centuries, women were praised for being:

• small

• quiet

• pleasant

• compliant

• self-denying

• hungry

A hungry woman is a tired woman.

A tired woman is a less powerful woman.

This is not accidental.

It’s structural.

Misogyny uses body shame as a tool to keep women preoccupied with shrinking rather than expanding their lives, voices and influence.

4. Why Aesthetics ≠ Health

Keywords: weight and health, BMI myth, health behaviours

The bodies we are told to aspire to are almost always:

• thin

• toned

• young

• white

• able-bodied

• filtered

But these are visual traits — not health behaviours.

Health is not:

• abs

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• thigh gaps

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• BMI

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• the ability to restrict calories

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• the absence of appetite

Health is a lived experience based on behaviours, not aesthetics.

Research shows that people of all sizes can improve health markers through behaviour change, not weight change.

5. Intuitive Eating as a Health-Focused, Feminist Approach

Keywords: Intuitive Eating, feminist health, body autonomy

Intuitive Eating is an evidence-based framework developed to restore the body’s natural self-regulation.

It promotes:

• hunger awareness

• fullness cues

• emotional regulation

• satisfaction

• gentle nutrition

• flexible, enjoyable movement

• nervous system safety

  
  

But it also does something far bigger:

Intuitive Eating is feminist.

It rejects:

• the male gaze

• body-controlling narratives

• the idea that discipline = starvation

• the belief that women must be small to be worthy

It restores:

• autonomy

• body trust

• appetite as a neutral biological signal

• permission to rest

• permission to take up space

  
  

This is radical because women being free is radical.

6. Why Reclaiming Your Appetite Is a Political Act

Keywords: feminism and body image, appetite regulation

When you stop obsessing over food and weight, you regain:

• mental energy

• emotional bandwidth

• time

• self-respect

• physical ease

• clarity

• personal power

Women who trust their bodies cannot be easily controlled.

Women who aren’t starving are harder to silence.

Women who feel at home in themselves are harder to sell things to.

Reclaiming your appetite isn’t just personal.

It’s political.

7. Final Thoughts: Your Body Was Never the Problem

Keywords: body acceptance, feminist wellness

The real issue was never your body.

It was the culture that taught you:

• hunger is unsafe

• rest is laziness

• weight equals worth

• thinness equals health

• smallness equals goodness

Intuitive Eating invites you back to a different truth:

✨ Your body is wise.

Your appetite is valid.

Your health is not measured in kilograms.

Your worth does not shrink or expand with your body.

This is what real health looks like.

This is what liberation feels like.