Has dieting become an emotional sponge for you?
In Bowen Family Systems theory, there is a concept known as the “emotional sponge.” The idea of the emotional sponge is that sometimes, one specific drama absorbs up all of our energy and attention and this hyper-fixation on one thing can be a useful (albeit maladaptive) way to avoid other, often more generalized, anxieties and stressors in your life. For some, dieting, weight loss, or pursuing a “lifestyle change” is that sponge.
Feel like your romantic partnership is failing? Has Covid-19 torn apart your personal and professional life in innumerable ways? Is your mother still trying to control your life even though you are a definitely a grown-up by now? Diet-culture says: why deal with these huge stressors, particularly when there is no evident, immediate “fix” for them, when you could just count calories instead?
Its use as a sponge is one of the most powerful tools diet-culture uses to lure us in. It tells the alluring lie that if we could just get our bodies under control, then the rest of the distressing things in our life will also fall into place. This narrative is particularly compelling because diet-culture offers a step-by-step guide to “fixing” yourself: exercise X times a week, eat Y servings of kale. If you’re “strong enough” to follow the rules, then your body - and everything else by proxy - will be fixed, diet-culture says. Oftentimes, life’s other, more encompassing and generalized stressors don’t have obvious step-by-step solutions (If your mother has been controlling your whole life, how will you stop her now?), making them harder to address or even think about. Diet-culture offers a detour so that we don’t have to address those harder things.
The problem with this approach is two-fold. First, we know diets don’t work and usually ultimately ramp up our distress rather than soothe it in the long run. Second, it perpetuates an ineffective feedback loop because the greater causes on distress are never addressed. If the habit is to use diet-culture to circumvent a greater stressor, each time we do it, the pattern becomes more and more ingrained. If each time in the past, you’ve turned to diet-culture, then the next time mom tries to be controlling, are you going to be more likely to practice holding boundaries or are you going to turn to a new cleanse instead?
Does this pattern sound familiar to you? If yes, here are some reflection questions to consider:
At what times am I most likely to feel the pull to return to a diet-culture mentality?
What emotions are often associated with that pull? Is it worthlessness? Overwhelm? Instability?
What other things might be going on in my life that could be triggering this emotion?
What is one thing I could do right now that, even if it is in a very small way, that addresses the other triggers of this emotion?
How can I practice moving through that uncomfortable emotion without turning to diet-culture to “fix” or “avoid” the emotion?
The answers to these questions will be different for everyone. The important work is figuring out YOUR narrative without diet-culture having a prominent role.