Embodying Diet Culture: Radical Self-Care and the Diet Habitus

In this chapter, I talk about women’s embodied experiences of diet culture and how they challenge this social phenomenon by first reflecting on themselves and their personal practices. I draw on Bourdieu’s theory of practice, namely, his writing on the habitus, to introduce the notion of a diet habitus, or the pre-conscious dissatisfaction women have with their bodies and relationships with food in fields where diet culture thrives. I use this concept to explore women’s engagement with what some referred to as forms of radical self-care; practices that are underpinned by acts of refusal, generative change, and the pursuit of knowledge. I argue that these practices contain a broader political focus that is often a difficult and even ambivalent experience for women. Ultimately, in this chapter, I begin to answer the question: What are women doing to dismantle diet culture?