Rainbowshappen

HAES aims to do exactly what it says on the tin: to promote health regardless of body weight or size. So why does this matter?

Well, tying up weight to health has several major flaws…

- It’s not scientifically accurate. Numerous studies contradict the accepted view of fatness as unhealthy, yet these studies are rarely reported in the media, and the prevailing view results in even these being interpreted and/or reported wrongly. For example, studies that showed that healthy eating (not dieting) and exercise improved blood sugar levels even with little to no weight loss were billed as ‘Even a very small weight loss can prevent diabetes!’ Sump’n not right there.

- In most people, healthy eating (again, not dieting) and exercise don’t result in the kind of dramatic weight loss promoted by the diet industry. Holding up weight loss as a goal makes people who don’t lose much or any weight discouraged, and leads them to give up on behaviors that have lots of other proven health benefits.

- The association of health improvement with weight loss encourages some people to engage in behaviors that may be unhealthy in many other ways in order to lose weight – such as dangerous calorie restriction, eating highly processed low-calorie non-foods, and even having their GI tracts surgically mutilated.

- By encouraging health providers to think of persistently fat patients as greedy, lazy, ignorant and/or non-compliant, and to think of any health issue as potentially weight-related, the weight-loss ideal discourages many fat patients from visiting their doctors as often as they need to, or at all.

- Equating weight loss with health harms the thin, too. Many thin people see no reason to take up behaviors that could improve their health because, hey, they’re already thin…they must be OK, right?

HAES suggests that by removing this emphasis, we can create better health both mentally and physically, as well as improved self-esteem – for everyone, of any size.

The recommendations are pretty simple, and you’ll already be aware of most of them.

Eat a healthy, balanced diet as far as possible. Learn to pay attention to your body’s signals of hunger and satisfaction. No deprivation, no calorie counting. (If you have or have had symptoms of a genuine eating disorder, you need help from a qualified specialist – but you need to recognize that dieting is or has probably been part of your problem, not its solution.)

Move, in ways that are fun, easy for you to fit into your life, and incorporate any special needs. (Many exercise classes ignore the fact that some moves are difficult for a much larger body, or, for that matter, for people with other mobility issues. A good class will address this stuff.)

There are, of course, many other facets to a healthy life. Get adequate sleep and relaxation. Go easy on booze, try to give up smoking, and be careful about other types of upper and downer. Find meaning in your life: loving relationships, pets, hobbies, service to others, spirituality, nature, whatever. If you feel low or anxious, get help. And go get your checkups, be that eyes, Pap smears, funny-looking moles or any other bits of you that need attention.

All pretty obvious stuff, but it needs a shift of emphasis and some campaigning for change. More body-friendly gyms, dance classes and pools would be great. So would a change of opinion among doctors, which of course goes all the way back to the attitudes they learn in med school – although there’s a lot an outspoken patient can do to insist on appropriate care. Not to mention dealing with the everyday, practical problems of those who have real trouble fitting things into their lives that governments, without understanding the grass-roots issues of someone, say, holding down two jobs and with a couple of small kids to feed on a limited budget, call ‘healthy lifestyle choices’.

Truth is, most of us do what we can, where we can, with what we have; because health is not (or shouldn’t be) about some mythical perfect life and body, but the one you have, right here and now.

Here’s more info to be going on with…
http://www.lindabacon.org/HAESbook/
http://www.healthateverysize.org.uk/

if nobody hated their body?

”...they will only make you feel ugly.”

Usually attributed to Baz Luhrmann, although I believe Mary Schmich said it first. No matter who said it, it’s still true. In fact, it’s been scientifically proven; there have been experiments that tested women’s level of satisfaction with their own bodies, before and after reading magazines full of pictures of fashion models. They all felt worse about themselves after looking at these kind of images.

Whether or not images of very thin models actually encourage eating disorders is something that’s often disputed. Undoubtedly, EDs have multiple, complex causes, and you can’t generalize about them. What does speak volumes, though, is that some ED treatment centers don’t allow fashion magazines on the premises. But, full-blown EDs aside, the generally obsessive and screwed-up attitude that so many women have to food and their bodies is probably not helped by this constant bombardment of imagery.

Here’s another quote, from John Berger, who saw advertising for what it is:
“The publicity image steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the product.”

These images are almost always trying to sell you something. So are a lot of the images we see around us, to be fair. But in the sale of actual products, there are pretty strict rules about the honesty of what you’re showing, and the requirement for disclaimers if what you’re showing isn’t the full story. Not so in the depiction of women’s bodies.

A few magazines are beginning to come clean about this and even inch towards changing their policies. But it’s slow, and while they’re under the stranglehold of relying on advertising revenue, they’re still subject to the dictates of companies who don’t want you to love your body as it is. (See John Berger, above.)

If you’re learning to love the body you have, it’s in your interest to avoid magazines that aim to make you hate it. So if you want reading matter that’s free of body hatred, try the less beauty-oriented parts of the mainstream press, or see what’s being written and printed in the underground. Or go write your own…because someone, somewhere, could make a mint out of more body-positive magazines if they dare to swim against the tide.