Health At Every Size
Food.
There are no words to describe how much I appreciate and love food. To have someone prepare it for you is a wonderful treat; to share it with people you love is a priceless experience; to learn innovative ways to prepare the same ingredients are both magical and humbling. This is why I’m incredibly disheartened when I hear people share stories of their struggles with eating disorders. Not to mention the new research suggesting that middle-aged and older women are suffering from body dissatisfaction too…this is not a young person’s disorder anymore!
What is wrong with our society?
A New Perspective on Dieting:
For one, never ever completely diet or restrict yourself from a specific food product, especially something you LOVE (e.g. chocolate cake). The minute you tell yourself “I’ll never eat chocolate cake again,” that’s all you’re going to want. You may be successful at denying yourself the first couple of rounds, but if the denial results in “increased chocolate cake mode”, you’d better be careful. It’s likely that you’ll cave into your cravings when the chocolate cake is impossible to ignore. However, instead of being completely satisfied with one piece, you’ll probably want to stuff your face with the entire cake. To make matters worse, breaking your “chocolate cake rule” will probably create a tremendous feeling of guilt and shame. This is when you might go: “i’ll never ever eat chocolate cake again”, which restarts the vicious restricting-binge cycle again.
People who don’t restrict themselves eat less “sometimes foods” than those who completely restrict themselves. Dieting may work in the short run, but over 95% of people gain the weight back (and more) in the long run. Also, dieting negatively affects your mind, body, and relationship with food.
Health at every size (HAES) is a big new battalion participating in the war against obesity. However, unlike the other battalions, which fights by encouraging people to eat less and move more, HAES fights by encouraging people of different shapes and sizes to live a sustainable, healthy lifestyle. By spreading body acceptance and positive behavior changes, individuals can tune-in to their bodies to understand their natural hunger cues, and most importantly, enjoy eating!
Really, the focus should be on health, not weight. With positive changes in eating and activity, your health will improve, and your body will settle at a weight that’s right for you!
Our society values thinness, but the reality is that healthy, beautiful bodies come in all different shapes and sizes.
Enjoy food, life is too short!
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Image courtesy of MartaDzedyshko
