From Fat Wagons to Testosterone Teas: The Gendered Scam of Diet Culture
By Coach Elle Jolie | Elle Jolie Wellness | Evidence-Based Coaching for Women and Men in Midlife
The Great Lie: You’re Either Too Much or Not Enough
Since the early 20th century, diet culture has shaped gender identity just as much as it has shaped bodies. Women have been told to shrink. Men have been told to dominate. And everyone has been sold a product—or a pill—to fix a body that was never broken to begin with.
For Women: A Century of Shrinking
From the 1930s onward, women were targeted with a rotating menu of restrictive, harmful methods:
Grapefruit fasts
Tapeworm pills
Cigarettes to suppress hunger
Cabbage soup and liquid-only starvation
Then came the billion-dollar brands:
Weight Watchers
SlimFast
Dexatrim
Atkins
South Beach
HCG drops
Juice cleanses
GLP-1 injections marketed as “miracle weight loss”
Each decade brought a new way to punish the body under the guise of “health.” What stayed the same? The core message:
You’ll be lovable when you’re less.
Oprah’s Role: The Soft Power of Shame
Oprah Winfrey, beloved by many and undeniably powerful, became the most influential amplifier of diet culture in modern media.
In 1988, she wheeled a red wagon filled with 67 pounds of fat onto her stage—the weight she lost using the liquid-only Optifast diet. It became one of the most iconic moments in weight-loss culture. What was rarely discussed? She regained the weight, and later admitted she was miserable, starving, and disconnected from her body during that time.
Oprah also:
Bought a 10% stake in Weight Watchers in 2015, helping rebrand it as “WW: a wellness company”
Gave a national platform to Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, and The Secret—voices that often pushed pseudoscience, toxic positivity, and quick fixes
Whether intentional or not, she helped turn diet culture into prime-time inspiration.
The Male Version: Dominate or Disappear
While women were being sold “less is more,” men were being sold “more is never enough.”
Supplement and Biohacking Culture
Testosterone boosters
Creatine, SARMs, GH peptides
Ice baths, red light therapy, NAD IVs
Carnivore, keto, and extreme fasting protocols
Marketed as discipline and optimization, these trends send a message:
You’re not man enough unless you’re shredded, fasted, and peak performing at all times.
PED Use (Performance Enhancing Drugs)
PEDs have become normalized in male fitness culture, especially online, including:
Anabolic steroids
SARMs
Growth hormone stacks
Thyroid hormone misuse
Stimulant-based fat burners
Often used behind the scenes but sold publicly as "just training hard and eating clean."
Silent Shame
Men are rarely told they’re too much. Instead, they’re made to feel like they’re not enough—too soft, too slow, not lean, not driven, not alpha. It’s still diet culture. It’s just dressed in performance.
The Damage: What Decades of Shame Have Cost Us
For women:
Chronic undernourishment
Muscle and bone loss
Disordered eating
Estranged relationships with food and movement
For men:
Hormonal suppression
Mental burnout and anxiety
PED dependency masked as “optimization”
Long-term metabolic and cardiovascular stress
And for both: an internalized belief that health must hurt, and our bodies must always be corrected.
What We Need Now: Strength, Truth, and Evidence
Whether you’ve counted points since the '90s or are choking down liver pills and peptide stacks today, it’s time to face it:
You weren’t the problem.
The system was.
The shame was.
The marketing was.
Health is not built on fear. It’s built on education, consistency, and honoring your physiology—not punishing it.
A Better Way Forward
What sustainable, evidence-based health actually looks like:
Strength training, not starvation
Muscle preservation, not scale obsession
Hormone literacy, not quick-fix protocols
Whole food fueling, not food fear
Nervous system care, not constant stress biohacks
Coaching that centers you, not someone’s sales goals
You Deserve Better
If you're tired of the noise, the scams, and the confusion, you're not alone.
Book a session with me.
We’ll cut through the clutter, build a strategy that fits your real life, and finally move toward a body that feels as strong as it is smart.
Because your body was never the problem.
Coach Elle Jolie
Elle Jolie Wellness | Strength, Science, and Self-Respect for Midlife Women and Men