Postpartum Mental Health and Body Image: Diet Culture and Mom Culture Intertwined
Diet Culture
As a clinician who works with individuals in recovery from disordered eating and those navigating perinatal mental health challenges, the overlap between these two worlds is often striking in my clients’ lives. Individuals recovering from disordered eating are frequently undoing decades of implicit and explicit societal conditioning that smaller is better, less is better, and “healthy” looks a very specific way. These messages don’t disappear during pregnancy or postpartum and can often intensify.
I have devoted myself to working from a Health at Every Size® and anti-diet framework because I’ve seen, both personally and professionally, the harm diet culture causes across genders, ages, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Diet culture is a belief system that worships weight loss and thinness at any cost, equates thinness with health and moral virtue, assigns higher status to certain bodies, demonizes specific foods and ways of eating, and shames or oppresses people who do not fit this narrow ideal or are not actively pursuing weight loss. These messages are intertwined into so many aspects of life interpersonally both with implicit and explicit biases engrained in our life experiences, interpersonal relationships, many forms of media, and more.
Mom Culture
Mom culture (or at least what I’m calling it here) may not have a formal definition, but it has become increasingly loud and apparent especially with the rise of social media. Like diet culture, mom culture thrives on comparison, shame, and the idea that there is one “right” way to do things. It assigns status to certain parenting choices, products, feeding methods, sleep approaches, and even emotional responses to motherhood, while subtly (or not so subtly) shaming those who fall outside the ideal. I hear women say all of the time “Is something wrong with me that I am not glowing like society thinks I should be in pregnancy”, “I feel like I should love being a mom, but I have times where I miss my old life” or “I don’t feel like motherhood is my entire life and I feel guilty for that”. You can scroll through motherhood content for ten minutes and suddenly question everything you’re doing, whether sleep training is great or harmful, whether a product is unsafe because of a single viral story, or whether the way you’re feeding or soothing your baby is somehow wrong. Similar to how diet culture can immediately make you think you need to get to the gym, eat “superfoods”, or cut back on carbs, mom culture can immediately make you feel like you aren’t doing enough.
As with most things, there is room for nuance. For example, eating a balanced diet with a variety of foods can support health, but when thoughts about food become obsessive, rigid, or interfere with your ability to be present experience joy, or social connection, that’s no longer well-being. Similarly, providing children with safety, care, and support is essential, but how families achieve that varies widely based on values, resources, culture, and lived experience. There must be room for growth, learning, and imperfection in both nutrition/movement and parenting.
Both diet culture and mom culture are deeply rooted in patriarchal values that encourage women to shrink themselves physically, emotionally, socially, and relationally. These systems place disproportionate responsibility on women when in reality they are systemic systems designed to keep women questioning themselves. They promote self-surveillance, self-criticism, and perfectionism under the guise of “health,” “doing what’s best,” or “being a good mom.” Instead of fostering community and shared humanity over shared experiences like bringing a child into the world or navigating caring for themselves physically and mentally, they pin women against one another, reinforcing judgment over connection and competition over compassion. When women are busy scrutinizing their bodies, their food choices, and their parenting decisions, they are less likely to question the systems that benefit from their exhaustion and self-doubt.
How Does This Impact Postpartum Women?
The postpartum period is an especially vulnerable time. You are undergoing massive physical, hormonal, and emotional changes, identities are shifting, sleep is often disrupted, and support can be inconsistent or inadequate. Many new mothers look to friends, family, and social media to understand how others “got through it,” while also spending hours researching baby carriers, monitors, sleep methods, feeding approaches, toys, and lactation advice.
Unsolicited advice from friends, family and even strangers as well as intensely curated/algorithmically delivered posts can quickly become overwhelming. Social media platforms are particularly effective at preying on uncertainty, repeatedly showing content that reinforces fears, doubts, and comparison. What starts as seeking reassurance can easily turn into heightened anxiety and self-criticism. Individuals with perfectionistic tendencies are especially vulnerable during this time. Wanting to do things the “right” way, combined with all-or-nothing thinking, can make external messages feel especially powerful.
On top of it being a vulnerable time, this can be when diet culture and mom culture join forces and have conditioned women to be concerned about their body “bouncing back”. The idea of women need to “bounce back” is the epitome of mom culture and diet culture at work with messaging like “get your pre-baby body back”. It is rooted in the belief that a woman’s worth is tied to her appearance and completely minimizes and neglects the profound physical and psychological transformation of pregnancy, birth, and now caring for a newborn and makes the postpartum experience out to be something to be controlled or fixed. This narrative prioritizes thinness and objectification over healing, rest, and attunement to one’s body and needs, reinforcing the expectation that mothers should minimize their needs and discomfort for the sake of others.
Staying True to You and Caring for Your Mental Health in the Postpartum Period
Resisting these systems doesn’t mean you stop caring about your health or your child—it means reclaiming your autonomy and values.
Some ways to push back include:
Practice values-based decision making. Ask yourself: Does this choice align with my values, my body, my baby, and my reality? Not with what’s trending, monetized, or most visible online.
Curate your media intentionally and limit as needed. Unfollow or mute accounts that trigger comparison, body scrutiny, or parenting shame and lack overall diversity and nuance in experiences. Follow voices that normalize diversity, imperfection, rest, and support.
Name the system—not yourself—as the problem. When you feel like you’re “failing,” pause and ask what unrealistic standard you’re measuring yourself against.
Expand your definition of health and good parenting. Health includes mental health, rest, pleasure, and sustainability. Good parenting includes repair, flexibility, and humanity.
Seek collaborative, non-judgmental support. Working with a HAES-aligned dietitian or a perinatal mental health professional can help you untangle internalized rules and develop trust in yourself.
Prioritize connection over performance. Whether it’s eating, feeding, sleeping, or soothing—being present and responsive matters more than doing it “perfectly”
Postpartum Mental Health Therapy
Diet culture cannot tell you what is right for your body because it is your body, with unique needs, history, and circumstances. If you want support around nourishment in a sustainable, compassionate way, working with a qualified/credentialed dietitian who practices from a HAES framework can help you meet your goals using evidence-based care.
Similarly, mom culture cannot tell you what is right for you and your baby. Your family is unique. If you want support for your mental health during pregnancy or postpartum, working with a licensed perinatal mental health professional can help you care for yourself in ways that actually make sense for your life.
My role as a perinatal mental health therapist is not to tell you what you should be doing but to help you figure out what feels right for you, what supports your well-being, and what aligns with your values. There may be shifts that can be made to better meet your individual needs, but focusing on individual interventions only goes so far when we aren’t properly acknowledging the systemic factors at play and finding ways to work against oppressive systems.
Postpartum Therapy in Philadelphia
Therapy for postpartum can provide education, tools, and support to help you feel like yourself again. As a Perinatal Mental Health Certified Therapist, I specialize in supporting women struggling with all of the complex feelings that come with the pregnancy and postpartum experiences.