DIET CULTURE IS A TRAUMA RESPONSE IN DISGUISE (AND JANUARY MAKES IT WORSE)

It's January, which means your social media feed has become a wall of "new year, new body" messaging. Detox teas. Gym challenges. Before-and-after photos. Meal plans promising transformation.

For some people, this is just noise. For others—particularly those with trauma histories, eating disorders, or complicated relationships with food and their bodies—January feels like walking through a minefield.

Here's what I want you to understand: if diet culture has an unusually strong grip on you, that's not a character flaw. It's often a trauma response in disguise.

And January, with its relentless messaging about bodies and control and transformation, can activate that response in ways that feel overwhelming—even if you can't quite explain why.

Let me explain what's actually happening, and what you can do about it.

Why Diet Culture Hooks Into Trauma

Diet culture isn't just about food and weight. At its core, it's a system built on control—and control is precisely what trauma survivors are often desperately seeking.

When you've experienced trauma, especially in childhood, your nervous system learns that the world is unpredictable and potentially dangerous. You couldn't control what happened to you. You couldn't make yourself safe.

But your body? That feels controllable. Food intake, exercise, weight—these become arenas where you can exert the control that was stripped from you elsewhere.

This isn't conscious. You're not thinking, "I experienced trauma, therefore I will restrict my food intake." The connection happens beneath awareness, in the survival parts of your brain that are still trying to solve an old problem with new tools.

Four Ways Trauma Shows Up as Diet Culture Devotion

1. Restriction as Control

When life feels chaotic or overwhelming, restricting food can feel like the one thing you can control. The smaller you make yourself—physically and in terms of your needs—the safer you might feel. This is especially common in people who grew up in chaotic households or experienced unpredictable caregiving.

2. Body Modification as Safety-Seeking

For some trauma survivors, changing their body feels like a way to become safe. The logic—often unconscious—goes something like: "If I look different, I'll be treated differently. If I'm smaller/fitter/more attractive, I'll be protected. If I'm less visible, I'll be less of a target."

This is particularly common in survivors of sexual trauma, where the body itself can feel like the source of danger.

3. Shrinking as a Fawn Response

I've written about the fawn response before—the trauma survival strategy of appeasing others to stay safe. Diet culture is, in many ways, a collective fawn response. It teaches us to shrink, to take up less space, to make ourselves more acceptable to others.

If you learned early that your needs were too much, that you were too much, diet culture's message of "become less" can feel oddly familiar. Comfortable, even, in the way that familiar pain often does.

4. Hypervigilance About Food

Trauma creates hypervigilance—a state of constant scanning for danger. Diet culture redirects that hypervigilance toward food. Counting calories, tracking macros, reading every label, planning every meal—these behaviours can serve the same function as scanning for threats. They keep the anxious brain occupied. They create an illusion of control and predictability.

The problem is that this "solution" perpetuates the underlying dysregulation rather than resolving it.

Why January Is Particularly Dangerous

If you have a trauma history or are in eating disorder recovery, January isn't just annoying—it can be genuinely destabilising. Here's why:

The Algorithm Amplification Problem

Recent research found that TikTok's algorithm delivers 4,343% more toxic diet and eating disorder content to users who have previously engaged with such content. That's not a typo. The algorithm actively funnels vulnerable users toward more harmful material.

In January, when diet content floods every platform, this amplification effect intensifies. If you've ever searched for weight loss content, clicked on a diet video, or engaged with fitness posts, the algorithm is primed to show you more—and more extreme—versions of that content.

Post-Holiday Shame Exploitation

The diet industry doesn't accidentally peak in January. It deliberately capitalises on post-holiday shame. You've just spent weeks surrounded by food, potentially eating differently than usual, possibly navigating difficult family dynamics. You might already be feeling vulnerable, dysregulated, or critical of yourself.

Diet culture swoops in at exactly this moment with a "solution" to feelings you didn't even realise you were having. The timing is calculated, not coincidental.

The Social Pressure Peak

In January, diet talk becomes normalised in ways it isn't the rest of the year. Colleagues discuss their cleanses. Family members announce their weight loss goals. Friends invite you to "dry January" or gym challenges. The usual boundary you might maintain—not engaging in diet talk—becomes harder to hold when it's coming from every direction.

For trauma survivors who already struggle with boundaries, this social pressure can feel impossible to resist.

What Diet Culture Gets Wrong About Bodies and Health

Beyond the trauma connection, it's worth naming what the research actually shows about dieting—because the narrative we're sold doesn't match the evidence.

Diets don't work long-term for most people. Studies consistently show that the majority of people who lose weight through dieting regain it within 2-5 years, and many end up at a higher weight than where they started. This isn't about willpower—it's about biology. Restriction triggers survival mechanisms that drive the body to restore lost weight.

Weight cycling (yo-yo dieting) is harmful. The repeated pattern of losing and regaining weight is associated with worse health outcomes than maintaining a stable higher weight. The "solution" creates its own problems.

You cannot determine health by looking at someone's body. Health is complex, multifactorial, and not visible from the outside. The assumption that smaller bodies are healthier bodies is not supported by research—and it causes real harm to people in larger bodies who are denied proper medical care based on appearance.

Restriction messes with your brain. Undereating affects cognition, mood, and emotional regulation. The irritability, obsessiveness, and preoccupation with food that dieters experience aren't character flaws—they're predictable neurological responses to inadequate nutrition.

The ADHD Complication

If you have ADHD, your relationship with food and diet culture may be even more complicated.

ADHD brains often struggle with interoception—the ability to recognise internal body signals like hunger and fullness. You might not notice you're hungry until you're ravenous, then eat quickly past the point of fullness because the signal didn't register in time.

This can look like "binge eating" or "lack of control," which then triggers shame and—you guessed it—the diet culture "solution" of more restriction and control. But the underlying issue isn't about discipline. It's about neurology.

ADHD is also associated with higher rates of eating disorders, particularly binge eating disorder and bulimia. The impulsivity, emotional dysregulation, and reward-seeking patterns of ADHD interact with food in ways that diet culture exploits but never actually addresses.

If you have ADHD and you've "failed" at diets repeatedly, please hear this: the diets failed you. They were never designed for how your brain works.

What Actually Helps (It's Not Another Diet)

If diet culture is a trauma response, then the solution isn't better dieting—it's trauma healing. Here's what that can look like:

Nervous System Regulation Over Calorie Counting

The urge to control food often spikes when your nervous system is dysregulated. Instead of white-knuckling through restriction, try addressing the underlying activation. What does your body actually need? Rest? Movement? Connection? Co-regulation with a safe person?

Learning to regulate your nervous system won't make you lose weight. But it might reduce the desperate need to control something—anything—that drives diet culture devotion.

Body Neutrality Over Body Positivity

You don't have to love your body. That's a high bar, and for many trauma survivors, it feels impossible and even threatening.

Body neutrality is a more accessible goal: your body is a body. It does things. You don't have to have strong feelings about it either way. You can stop being at war with it without forcing yourself to celebrate it.

For some people, this looks like: "I notice I'm having a hard body image day" instead of "I hate my body." The first acknowledges a temporary state. The second is an identity statement that reinforces the war.

Nourishment Over Punishment

Diet culture frames eating as something to be controlled, limited, earned. A trauma-informed approach asks different questions: What does my body need to function? How can I feed myself in a way that feels caring rather than punitive? What would it mean to eat as an act of self-care rather than self-control?

This doesn't mean abandoning all structure around food. For many people, especially those with ADHD, some structure is genuinely helpful. But there's a difference between structure that supports wellbeing and restriction that punishes existence.

Movement for Regulation, Not Compensation

Movement can be genuinely helpful for trauma healing and nervous system regulation. But diet culture has co-opted exercise as a punishment for eating—something you do to "burn off" food or "earn" the right to nourish yourself.

The question isn't "how many calories will this burn?" It's "does this help my nervous system? Does my body want to move? Would this feel good, or am I forcing it?"

If the answer is that your body is tired and needs rest, rest is the right answer. Rest isn't laziness. It's recovery.

Protecting Yourself in January

You can't avoid diet culture entirely—it's too pervasive. But you can reduce your exposure and build some defences.

Curate Your Feed Aggressively

Unfollow, mute, and "not interested" anyone posting diet content. This isn't about being judgmental of them—it's about protecting yourself. You are not obligated to consume content that harms you, no matter who's posting it.

If you can't unfollow someone (family, close friends), mute their stories and posts for January. You can unmute later if you want.

Have Scripts Ready for Diet Talk

You will encounter diet talk. Having a few phrases ready can help you navigate without getting pulled in:

• "I'm not doing diet talk this year."

• "I'd rather not discuss bodies or food."

• "That's not something I'm focusing on anymore."

• "Let's talk about something else."

You don't owe anyone an explanation. A subject change is a complete response.

Recognise "Wellness" That's Diet Culture in Disguise

Diet culture has gotten savvy. It now hides behind words like "wellness," "clean eating," "lifestyle change," and "health optimisation." If the programme focuses primarily on weight, size, or appearance—no matter what it's called—it's diet culture.

Red flags: before/after photos, "transformation" language, talk of "good" and "bad" foods, earning or burning off what you eat, elimination of entire food groups without medical necessity.

When to Get Professional Support

A blog post can offer perspective. It can't replace professional support if you need it.

Consider reaching out to an eating disorder-informed therapist or dietitian if:

• Your eating patterns are significantly impacting your physical health

• You're engaging in behaviours like restriction, bingeing, purging, or compulsive exercise

• Thoughts about food and your body consume significant mental energy

• You're avoiding social situations because of food or body concerns

• Your relationship with food feels out of control in either direction

• You have a trauma history that's tangled up with eating and body image

Eating disorders are serious mental health conditions. They have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness. Getting support isn't weakness—it's wisdom.

The Bottom Line

Diet culture isn't just about food. For many people—especially trauma survivors—it's a misguided attempt to solve problems that have nothing to do with weight.

If you find yourself drawn to restriction and control around food, the question isn't "how can I diet better?" It's "what am I actually trying to control? What safety am I trying to create? What need is going unmet?"

January will end. The diet messaging will quiet down (somewhat). But the underlying work—healing the trauma that makes diet culture appealing in the first place—is worth doing year-round.

Your body isn't a problem to solve. It's the home you live in. And you deserve to stop being at war with it.

Free Resource: The Anti-Diet January Survival Guide

I've created a free guide for anyone trying to navigate January without getting pulled into diet culture. Inside you'll find: a checklist for recognising diet culture (even when it's disguised as "wellness"), the trauma-diet connection explained simply, body neutrality basics and practical reframes, scripts for handling diet talk with family and colleagues, and a framework for what to focus on instead.

Free guide: https://drmel1.podia.com/anti-diet-january-guide

References

Brewerton, T. D. (2007). Eating disorders, trauma, and comorbidity: Focus on PTSD. Eating Disorders, 15(4), 285-304.

Mann, T., et al. (2007). Medicare's search for effective obesity treatments: Diets are not the answer. American Psychologist, 62(3), 220-233.

Center for Countering Digital Hate. (2024). TikTok's algorithm delivers toxic diet content to users with eating disorders at alarming rates.

Nazar, B. P., et al. (2016). The risk of eating disorders comorbid with ADHD: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 49(12), 1045-1057.

Tylka, T. L., & Kroon Van Diest, A. M. (2013). The Intuitive Eating Scale-2: Item refinement and psychometric evaluation. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 60(1), 137-153.