Here is the one striking difference I see between leaving a cult and leaving diet culture:

While the definition of cult is somewhat unclear and controversial there is a widely accepted understanding that a cult is a social group with socially deviant or novel beliefs and practices.

But diet and weight loss thoughts and ideals are NOT considered socially deviant by the masses, nor are they novel in our culture. THEY ARE THE NORM.

If you were to escape a cult, you'd be FREE. You'd begin to heal and recover and reclaim your life and most of the people around you would be supportive. They'd be appalled by what you had to endure, enraged even. You'd receive confirmation that what you went through was traumatic and immoral and that by walking out on your cult community, you were doing the right thing. The thing that is best for YOU.

Bonus! You might even get to go on Oprah! But not if you leave diet culture...oh no....when you leave diet culture not only is O not interested in an interview, the next thing you know, she's selling you (and your teen daughter) the newest diet-disuguised-as-health.

When women are finally able to see diet culture for what is and WALK OUT of it they are not often met with applause (or even compassionate understanding). Instead, what they find is that – to their horror - the world we live in IS the cult. And while they’ve walked out, everyone around them is still resolutely bought-in. Their school system is the cult, their doctor’s office is the cult, their gym is the cult, their grocery store line and coffee shop and favourite television shows and fiction books…they are ALL the cult. And instead of feeling like they’re finally free, women realize that they will never be fully free. That they are going to need to cultivate their own freedom daily, while enduring side-eye from their sister-in-law and comments from well-intentioned acquaintances and strangers that love to give free advice on all the ways you could, and should!, buy back in......

It's worth it though. Because the best thing about leaving this cult is that you reclaim personal power. You make the statement that you will no longer participate in your own abuse or oppression....and THAT is the moment that life gets infinitely better, easier, and more incredible.