DEAR DIET CULTURE: NO MORE BEING CALLADITA
Written by Hortencia Jimenez
I love food. I enjoy cooking and eating my cultural foods. However, growing up I had a love-hate relationship with food and my body. I grew up in a traditional Mexican immigrant household where patriarchal ideologies and gender roles were enforced. I experienced a lot of oppression for being a woman. I was constantly reminded that my role was to be a “good” girl, to learn how to cook and clean and save myself for marriage. The marginalization and oppression I endured made it very difficult to challenge these ideologies and exert my voice.
Even to this day I continue to struggle to exert my voice, to own my powerful voice unapologetically. I was conditioned at home to be calladita (quiet/silent), and the school system further enforced my marginalization by having low expectations of students like myself who come from working class immigrant backgrounds. Coming from an immigrant working class background, I was taught to be humble and discouraged to speak up or question authority. This did not serve me well going through the education system because I was not comfortable exerting my voice. I have learned that in spaces and institutions that have historically excluded BIPOC folks, we must exert our voices, take space, and demand respect.
One of the institutions that I want to take up space speaking about is diet culture.
For too long, diet culture lived in my home and robbed me from the connection of my ancestral foods, identity, connection to family, joy of eating, and so much more.
Diet culture also robbed me from my voice but not anymore. No more being calladita. I want to focus on two things: lack of representation of BIPOC in the anti-diet movement and the principles of intuitive eating.
First, for women of color like myself, it’s challenging and difficult to be part of the anti-diet and intuitive eating conversations of the wellness industry. While I recognize the great strides that this movement has made and the spaces it has created, I continue to feel frustrated that the dominant voices heard and centered are those of white, thin, heterosexual, and middle class women. There is a lack of representation of BIPOC.
There is a growing platform of registered dieticians, health coaches, eating disorder advocates, and writers from communities of color such as @yourlatinanutritionist, @alexfoodfreedom, @yourdietitianbff, @black.nutritionist, @nalgonapositivepride, @wellwitholi, @carolinejsumin, @tiffanyima, @rosiemensah, @bodyjustice.therapist, @julissas.recovery, and @fatchicanafeminist to name a few. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list but a point of conversation and acknowledgement that women of color have historically been doing the hard work to dismantle systems of oppression.
We have been working in our communities before the major growth of anti-diet accounts on Instagram and TikTok. Having a small or large social media account should not be a metric of success, credibility, or popularity.
Communities of color have always led major movements, and the anti-diet movement is not an exception.
While I embrace HAES® and the principles of intuitive eating, I remain critical of its limitations. Speaking from personal experience and working with Latinx undocumented immigrant popuations, some of the intuitive eating principles need to involve conversations regarding racism, nativism, food apartheid, mass incarceration and deportations, and other issues that affect Latinx communities.
Too often, anti-diet culture narratives erase discussions of the connection of immigration, food, identity, and fat communities. I remain hopeful because trail blazers like Virgie Tovar (@virgietovar) and @fatfemmecollective are leading conversations at these intersections.
I humbly join the anti-diet wellness space with a social and racial justice lens that centers on my experience as a Mexican immigrant and working with Latinx populations. I do not claim to be a representative of Latinx communities, but I do hope that my presence on social media can affirm and validate the experiences of others from similar backgrounds. Representation matters, our voices matter, and our experiences matter.
Dr. Hortencia Jimenez holds a BA, MA, and Ph.D in Sociology and is also a certified Health Coach. Dr. Jimenez is a full time tenured Sociology professor and is currently working on a co-edited undergraduate textbook on Latinxs studies with SAGE Publishing, a leading press in the social sciences. Dr. Jimenez research writing has appeared in academic publications and has numerous awards and recognitions for her work in the Latinx community. She was recently featured for her undieting work in Belatina news, a leading Latina digital platform, has been interviewed by First Gen American, Latinos En Vivo, Radio Bilingue, and has been on numerous podcasts. She is a contributing expert for UnDiet Your Mind app, a community-based app where members can work on their UnDieting journey in a safe and supportive HAES, non-diet and Intuitive Eating aligned space. Dr. Jimenez work centers on dismantling diet culture from a social and racial justice framework and helping Latinxs heal their relationship with food. You can follow her at @drhortenciajimenez on Instagram.