From Spandex to Lab Coats: We're Witnessing Diet Culture's Leadership Change Right Now
The leadership of diet culture was once women entrepreneurs in spandex. Now it's men in lab coats. How did that happen?
THE LEADERSHIP OF DIET CULTURE WAS ONCE WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS IN SPANDEX
We’re all witnessing an important cultural moment right now: the very lucrative diet industry is experiencing a changing of the guard.
I’ve thought of how I wanted to write about this moment, and I realized that the most entertaining way was probably through a Game of Thrones analogy. Don’t worry. You can still enjoy this essay if you haven’t seen the show because all you need to know is the gist: people in elaborate outfits fighting over power and wealth.
Ready?
For almost a century, the weight-loss game was run by one type of (metaphorical) family: ladies in spandex extolling self-control, skinny margaritas and thigh gap. Let’s call them the House of Spandexoratheons.
Well, winter came for them in the shape of fat activism, body positivity, and a small but growing army of dissidents in academia and medicine. Though the Spandexoratheon reign had been long and mighty, they began to be panned and reviled, debunked through podcasts, articles and other things in the cyber realm.
We watched the fall of a great house. But the fall of one house leaves a vacuum - an opportunity - for another to rise.
The American Medical Association stepped in ten years ago, labeling fatness a disease. This became a pathway for the members of the House of Pharmaceuticals to step in and take over where House Spandexoratheon left off.
Where there had once been sweatbands, there are now lab coats. Where House Spandexoratheon had sewn seeds of feminine competition to peddle diet products, House of Pharmaceuticals intends to use their influence and our fear of death and disease to do the same. What was once the realm of “vanity” has now become the realm of science.
Spandex to lab coats. Shame to fear. The aesthetics and the gender of the leadership are shifting, yet the end goal remains the same: create a sense of urgency, make consumers feel like they can’t live without the product, promise a miracle, watch the sales roll in and then, when it fails, watch those same consumers blame themselves, not the product or the promise-maker.
NOW IT’S MEN IN LAB COATS AND SUITS
I began to think about how this process mirrored (in some ways) the shift from the woman-led field of midwifery to the highly masculine field of medicine during the 1860s. Though I do not see midwives as interchangeable with the female entrepreneurs who led diet culture, I do see parallels between the historical process of women creating a community - or a consumer base in a largely unregulated sector - that then becomes seized upon as a market opportunity by men with claims to respectability.
The lab coats remain fairly consistent throughout.
It’s important to point out that there have been exceptions to the argument I’m making here. Like, Phen-fen was a major moment in the House of Spandexoratheon era, and it was orchestrated by the largely man-run pharmaceutical industry. Likewise, even as we’re watching the leadership of diet culture become male CEOs and scientists, there are many notable and visible feminine people who are also in or bolstering the House of Pharmaceuticals.
Overall, however, I argue that diet culture was once firmly coded feminine, with mostly thin, white and conventionally attractive women in visible roles of leadership selling diet products to other women. The diet industry of their time was largely unregulated by laws or gate-kept my medicine. Their claims weren’t peer-reviewed. They conveyed their claim to authority through exercise/athletic wear and personal experiences with weight-loss. The tone was motivational and intimate. Beauty was the primary goal and call to action. Shame was the primary sales method.
I argue that the current shift to a pharmaceutical-run era of diet culture is coded masculine. The visible leadership is white men CEOs and doctors who are middle aged and older. The tone is serious, scientific, distant and respectable. Their products require a prescription. They convey their claim to authority through suits, lab coats and advanced degrees. Disease and death prevention are the calls to action. Fear is the primary sales method.
It’s important to notice that though the aesthetics have changed, the goal has not: create a sense of urgency, make consumers feel like they can’t live without the product, promise a miracle, watch the sales roll in and then, when the product fails, watch those same consumers blame themselves, not the product or the promise-maker.
HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?
There’s a headline here that no one is talking about: there was room for a changing of the guard because the Fat Activism and Body Positivity movements brought down the authority of the House of Spandexoratheon.
It’s no accident that for the past five + years that House of Spandexoratheon has tried desperately (and unsuccessfully) to pivot away from their history of fat-shaming. It’s no accident that the House of Pharmaceuticals has wholesale co-opted the language and frameworks developed by fat activists to critique weight stigma, and has transformed that liberatory ideology into a sales pitch.
It’s important to remember this now (largely) debunked era of spandex had America in a chokehold. This was no joke. Billions of dollars were made. People didn’t know they could opt out of dieting.
Before this we didn’t know that diet culture could be beat.
Before this, we didn’t know we could win.
Before this, no one had even tried it.
This was a win that our grandparents and our parents never could have imagined.
Don’t let them make you forget that. Don’t let them make you think they’re not weak. Don’t let their wild, salesman antics make you think that what we have isn’t powerful - because it is. Everything you learned and believed at the height of body positivity is still true.
What they have on their side is strong: shame, history, precedent, stigma, and the desire to create a lot of wealth. But what we have is better: love, self-acceptance, real health, real joy, freedom, the argument for human rights and the science, too.
So, take a breath, take a moment to truly celebrate. The onslaught is on. It’s ok to be a little demoralized and exhausted. So, rest up and get ready. Because we’ve got another house to beat.
xo,
P.s. I’d love to hear your thoughts about what you just read! Do you agree, disagree, see limits to these arguments, have a gobsmacking or gotcha fact to share? Do so in the comments.
Wanna leave all our diet culture woes behind & go to Croatia together?
Come to Dubrovnik, Croatia with me June 1-7 2025!
While surrounded by the breathtaking landscapes of Dubrovnik, we'll experience Croatia with like-minded travelers who have a shared commitment to plus-size travel and body positivity! Together we’ll experience local cuisine classes, historical city tours, and authentic cultural encounters. It's an escape designed to nourish your body, mind, and spirit in the heart of Croatia's coastal paradise.
Our itinerary includes:
Visit to the Trsteno Arboretum
Olive Oil Tasting
Guided Tour of Dubrovnik
Guided Hike of Mount Srđ (optional)
Farm-To-Table Traditional Croatian Cooking Class
Kayak and Snorkeling around the Old City Walls or Relaxing Beach Day
Morning Pages over Breakfast
Call or email for more details!
care@iamfit4travel.com
754-457-9870
Wanna come to a tea party fundraiser I’m helping to host in SF?
Wanna come to Fat Film School, a free online event I’m co-hosting with my friend and fat filmmaker, Devon Devine, on April 22? RSVP to virgie@virgietovar.com for link & details.
Thank you for this Virgie! I always appreciate your incredible balance of humor, truth, sassyness, compassion, encouragement, and no BS!
What an awesome take, that it was activism that brought down the house of spandexoratheons. I am curious if there are folx over here that lived through the news cycle when Fen-Phen came out. And saw its progression. Did it feel like this moment, too? Like all critical perspective go out the door with this outlandish Ozempic articles.