On Food Rules, Then and Now

This might be a controversial take, but if you’re an elder millennial woman who grew up in the ’90s and early 2000s, there’s a decent chance body image issues were a regular part of the curriculum.

I don’t ever remember my mom saying a negative word about her body in front of me. And yet, I was on Weight Watchers in high school — which probably tells you everything you need to know about the cultural air we were breathing.

I’ve also been pretty open about my complicated relationship with food rules. The endless “do this, not that” advice cycle. The moralization of eating. The way social media keeps rebranding restriction as wellness. And now, in 2026, layered on top of GLP-1s and a renewed obsession with being visibly smaller, it’s hard not to feel like we’re back in familiar territory. Everyone is shrinking again. Victoria’s Secret even brought back its controversial runway show last year, and the stock market was thrilled. 

So when the new food guidelines dropped, I didn’t feel excitement so much as a pause.

Partly because women have good reason to be wary of “guidance” from institutions that haven’t always respected our bodily autonomy, and partly because it’s fair to wonder whether federal nutrition advice actually changes anything at all. Still, I noticed what felt different this time. The messaging was more direct. Less nutrient math, more real food. Protein was framed as something to actually prioritize (not minimize), especially as we age. Full-fat dairy quietly made its way back into the conversation. Ultra-processed foods and added sugar were named more clearly, instead of politely danced around. Even gut health got a mention, which would’ve been unthinkable in the old low-fat, calorie-counting era.

It doesn’t undo decades of diet culture or fix access and affordability. And it certainly doesn’t protect women from the pressure to be smaller. But it also doesn’t feel obsessed with restriction in the same way past guidance often did — which, given our history with food rules, feels worth acknowledging.

After years of being told our bodies were problems to manage, clarity, at the very least, is a place to start.