By Jessica Singh, Founder of Teffie
What the teff did we do to ourselves?
The word "diet" comes from the ancient Greek diaita - meaning way of life. A philosophy. A relationship with food built on nourishment, balance, and joy. Somewhere along the way, we lost that entirely.
Today, diet means restriction. Cut. Avoid. Less. An entire industry built not on making us feel better, but on making us feel like we're never quite enough - and then selling us the solution. We've been so busy being reactive - counting, restricting, starting again every Monday - that we forgot to ask a more important question: what do we actually want to feel like?
I grew up, like so many women, being told that a diet was something you were either on or off. I've watched friends shrink themselves - not just physically, but in confidence, in energy, in joy - chasing a version of health that was never really about health at all. And for what? Research tells us that up to 95% of people who lose weight through restrictive dieting gain it back within five years. We start again on Monday. And the cycle continues.
The problem was never our willpower. It was the prescription.
We were handed the wrong tools and told to build a life with them. Restriction isn't a way of life - it's a punishment. And no one has ever sustained a punishment forever. What if instead, we chose to be proactive? To focus not on what we take away, but on what we add in. On how we want to feel - energised, clear, strong, alive - and worked backwards from there.
That's what Teffie is built on. Not a diet. A diaita. A way of life.