Why 90s Diet Culture Broke Your Business Brain

SnackWell's cookies promised everything and delivered nothing.

Fat-free. Guilt-free. The perfect reward for your Jane Fonda workout with soup cans as weights. We bought it all, literally and figuratively.

I was there. Watching my mom count fat grams while I learned that taking up less space was somehow virtuous. That smaller was always better.

What I didn't realize then was how deeply this messaging would embed itself in my professional brain decades later.

The Conditioning Ran Deeper Than We Thought

The 90s didn't just sell us fat-free cookies. They sold us a complete philosophy about women's place in the world.

Be smaller. Take up less space. Apologize for your presence.

This wasn't just about body size. It was about training an entire generation of women to minimize themselves in every area of life.

The numbers tell the story we lived. A staggering 89 percent of women are canceling job interviews and important engagements simply because of how they look. We're literally removing ourselves from opportunities.

That's the SnackWell's effect in action. The same psychological manipulation that made us eat more "healthy" cookies is making us show up less in our careers.

From Soup Cans to Self-Sabotage

When I transitioned from corporate VP to entrepreneur, I carried this programming with me like invisible baggage.

Smaller proposals. Quieter in meetings. Apologizing before I even spoke.

I'd spent years watching the "smaller is better" message play out. Women making themselves smaller in every possible way.

The research backs this up. Close to 80% of women struggle with low self-esteem and shy away from self-advocacy at work. Four in five women held back by confidence issues rooted in decades of conditioning.

We learned to workout with household items because we didn't deserve real equipment. We learned to eat fake food because we didn't deserve real satisfaction.

And we learned to dream smaller because we didn't deserve real success.

The Business Cost of Being Small

This conditioning shows up everywhere in how women run businesses.

Underpricing services. Over-delivering to prove worth. Apologizing for taking up space in the market.

I see it with my clients constantly. Brilliant women who've internalized the message that they should be grateful for scraps instead of demanding the full meal.

The contrast is stark. Those with positive body confidence are 75% more likely to feel extremely successful in their career. They're twice as likely to be happy with their progress and achievements.

The women who rejected the "smaller is better" message are thriving. The rest of us are still eating the business equivalent of fat-free cookies and wondering why we're not satisfied.

Breaking the Pattern

Here's what I've learned from powerlifting that applies to business: You can't lift heavy weights by making yourself smaller.

You need to take up space. Plant your feet. Own your presence.

The same principle applies to running a business. You can't build something significant while trying to minimize your impact.

I had to unlearn decades of conditioning. Stop apologizing for my rates. Stop making my proposals smaller to seem more palatable.

Start showing up as the full version of myself instead of the diet version.

The Real Work Begins Now

Recognizing this pattern is the first step. But awareness without action is just another form of staying small.

The next time you catch yourself minimizing your business presence, ask: Is this me, or is this my 90s programming talking?

Because the world doesn't need another generation of women making themselves smaller.

It needs women who take up the space they've earned. Who charge what they're worth. Who show up fully instead of serving the diet version of their potential.

The SnackWell's era is over. Time to stop eating the business equivalent of fat-free cookies and start demanding the real thing.

Your success depends on it.