Our Why…

In every organization we’ve served, from club sports and youth dance academies to professional baseball and Olympic teams, diet culture is at the root of many problems we help athletes and dancers navigate and survive. Dieting and all it entails are symptoms of a broad, complex system collectively termed diet culture. Diet culture is characterized by a conflation of weight and health or weight and performance, or both. This includes myths about food and eating and a moral hierarchy of bodies.

Diet culture thrives in sports and the performing arts for very specific reasons. Attitudes and beliefs held by coaches, parents, directors, and athletes and dancers themselves, echo broadly held biases against fat people in the U.S. and in sport there is a doubling down on the expectation for total adherence to diet culture edicts. This causes a lot of suffering.

Our aim is to inform, teach, and empower athletes and artists to reconnect with their bodies as a trusted source of information and to offer a roadmap back to thriving in sports beyond the constraints and limitations of diet culture. The Embodied Athlete Community exists so we may evolve in ways that allow us to focus on the best of what sports and arts bring to the human experience. We want this to be a place that invites vulnerability, honesty, and integrity. We believe change begins by telling our stories and shining light on the problems athletes and artists encounter that make eating disorders more likely.

For change to occur, it will take everyone involved from students and administrators, to parents and coaches. If you are an athlete, work in sports medicine or mental health, or you’re a coach, a parent, or a research scientist, we invite you to join us in doing things differently.

If you have a story, resources, or new research to share, please contact us!

It begins by educating ourselves

Diet culture is rooted in the belief that body size equates to health and that individuals have full control and sole responsibility for their health and therefore, their appearance. The origins of this belief structure lie in United States’ colonial history, early forms of Protestantism, racism, and our highly individualistic society. This may be new or frustrating information for some of you. For others, the idea of not dieting to control your size is unfathomable, even radical, especially in the context of human performance. We understand that reaction. We encourage you to explore our resources page to learn more. Knowing and understanding this history has fundamentally shaped how we practice and care for people. We hope it has a similar effect on you.

Know that at best, focusing on appearance over performance is a distraction from proper fueling and nourishment. At worst, it leads to unnecessary suffering and cruelty. Participation in diet culture perpetuates that harm - the outcomes of which we see every day. More than a paradigm shift is needed.

Recognizing diet culture

You may recognize some of these attitudes and behaviors in yourself, your family, teammates, coaches, medical staff, colleagues, or friends. Feel free to share the graphic below as a starting place for exploring these ideas and talking about them with your community.