Disclaimer: I am going to be discussing food and some habits I had when I had an eating disorder. If that doesn’t contribute to your health journey please skip this one. I’m not a doctor and this is not meant to be eating/recovery advice.
ALSO; there are not enough pictures in this post. I am a visual person who loves pictures but this is just a whole lotta type. Sorry!
A friend sent me a post from
called My Top 5 Takeaways from the #NoNewThings Challenge and in the post Shira said something that sort of blew my mind;Takeaway #1: Shopping is Morally Neutral
If you look at buying stuff as morally neutral, and a data collection effort that helps you make better decisions in the future, you won’t feel so bad about supposed ‘mess ups.’
A great reminder that the point of this challenge is not to curb spending all together, but rather, to increase awareness of our shopping habits and triggers so we can shop more intentionally and sustainably in the future.
I am not joking when I say that this was a HOT take for me since I have always felt like my shopping habits were frivolous and I only discussed with other fellow shoppers. However, this quote (and subsequent conversations) has me thinking that shopping for clothes is a lot like eating food. Because, like food, shopping is morally neutral but the messages we get online do not express that often enough.
(How’s that for an introduction?)
On this text thread that Shira’s post was shared, a friend made this brilliant observation which she credits to
.And since shopping and diet fear mongering tend to target women, this feels like a salient discussion. Not only did the No Spend trend seem to spike at the beginning of the year, as diets often do, but the nomenclature around it feels very similar.
Whole 30 → 75StyleHard
Low Fat/ Low Carb → Low Spend
Fast Food → Fast Fashion
Binge eating → Binge scrolling/shopping
What I Eat In a Day → OOTD
Literally, the way we talk about both eating and shopping can be boiled down into the word CONSUMING.
Then
at posted this reference to Michael Pollen (IYKYK) as her shopping philosophy. Pollen wrote a book, In Defense of Food, about health/nutrition in which his advice boiled down to “Eat Food/ Not too Much/Mostly Plants.And this made me realize a lot of food talk can translate to shopping. Frankly, the more I think about it, the more similarities I see. Buying something during a no-buy feels like eating a piece of cake on your diet. Buying from fast fashion feels like eating inhumanely raised chicken.
But shopping is, in fact, as morally neutral as eating.
Tamika (aka PrettyCritical) a great creator who talks about fashion and shopping through the lens of personal finance drew a comparison between the two in a TikTok I saw that is years old (I’m, sadly, not able to track it down).
Tamika advocates for understanding your buying habits because, like eating, you can’t just say “I’ll never eat/shop again.” We are all going to shop, even if we are just buying shampoo. But if you are reading this Substack, you probably LOVE shopping like I do.
Shopping should be as fun as eating. But shopping often carries the same judgement around eating whether self-inflicted or caused by others.
Several years ago I went through the painful work of dismantling an eating disorder I had which included cycles of binge and restrict and on the other side of that work, I feel like there is much that I learned that can be applied to shopping;
Back to Shira’s takeaway from her No New Things challenge; we can think about shopping with less rigidity and a more curious collection of data points that help us to shop more intuitively. I adore
for being open about shopping mistakes she has made (here and here) because, ultimately, we are all going to buy something that we kind of regret OR buy something when we said we wouldn’t and we don’t have to beat ourselves up over it. And, Irene, includes what she learned from her mistakes.
Put into the frame of food: don’t let one day of eating too much (or too little) force you into a spiral of doing it again. I had a habit of not just eating one cookie, but an entire sleeve which left me feeling physically sick and emotionally out of control. Be an observer of yourself and realize that perhaps shopping when you’re bored leads you to regretful purchases.
There are a lot of people informing what you buy and it’s HARD to quiet that noise or even to recognize it as noise. Recently
had an incredible newsletter about how we de-influence ourselves1 (aka break out of the cycle of impulse shopping) and my favorite line was when she wroteAm I wearing this because it genuinely appeals to me, or am I wearing it for the image it projects?
From the micro level: We’ve got influencers raving about a top that they are earning commission on (do they actually like it?) and, at the macro level, we’ve got trend reports telling us what color to wear.
Put in the frame of eating; are you eating food that genuinely appeals to you? Or on a micro level did someone tell you to start your day with lemon water and on a macro level that you have to clear your plate? Literally just THINKING about why you buy what you buy can be helpful in that data collection.
I realize the PRACTICAL advice here is sparse but I’m a thinker of things so I bring to you thoughts. However, if anyone else sees the comparison between shopping and food (whether hilarious or helpful, the comment section is here for you!)
Bottom line is, let’s try to dismiss the judgement of eating and shopping from our lives and eat/buy what we like. And if you don’t find food diets helpful then don’t put yourself on a shopping diet (and do if you, do! Only you know what you need).
Also, shout out to YOU for reading through this. I really enjoy writing about styling tips and shopping but I’m taking a break from TikTok where the styling tips are abundant (and there are so many good Substackers who are far better at it than me). So I’m writing about the many things I’m overthinking about when it comes to shopping, trends, etc.
Substack has been a place for me to find MY people and I’m so grateful that anyone would find my writing worth reading.
Forgive that I am quoting a newsletter that quotes me. I realize how INSANE this feels but the author makes AMAZING points.
this is super interesting! the comparison is in many ways inevitable both for the reasons you've mentioned and also for the undeniable dopamine hit that we get from both shopping and eating. i wouldn't be surprised if for many people restricted eating results in more compulsive shopping, and vice versa.
I've been disturbed by my own language when thinking and writing about how to curb consumption, as it runs eerily close to the language in diet culture, and bravo for pointing this out! It's so true that this mentality can be incredibly unhealthy and I've deleted many a draft when I've reflected on what I wrote.
That said, I don't think shopping is morally neutral...I think buying material goods is a fact of life and often essential, but how much and what clothing we choose to buy does have moral implications when we think about the human and environmental cost of producing them. I know it makes me sound incredibly pedantic to harp on this, especially when you're not talking about about shopping indiscriminately at all but about the mentality around shopping bans...but sustainability is not often part of the personal style discourse and it's also the source of my personal anguish about my habits, so I hope by raising it also gives us all something to think about!