Thursday, November 3, 2016

The True Definition of Health

It is easy to get convinced by the weight loss industry that you are overweight and should be partaking in the latest fad diet or weight watcher program. I have fallen for this scan so many times. Apparently, according to the Body Mass Index, I am overweight; I have been labeled as overweight since high school. Because of this, I used to constantly worry about the number on the scale and the size of my jeans. I exercised every day and constantly watched everything I ate, often denying myself foods that I was craving. As a swimmer, I exercise about 4 hours a day and often times during practice I used to catch myself thinking that I should be swim faster and longer so I can burn more calories. This was not a good mentality; I should have been focusing on my desire to become a better athlete instead of becoming smaller.

Yet, after exercising and eating healthy, I still was considered overweight. So I started the Beach Body 21 day Fitness program in hopes of becoming skinny and finally categorized as a normal weight. I followed all the work out programs and ate only the foods that were approved by the company. After a week or so on the program I noticed I was going to bed hungry, became moody, and felt guilty every time I wanted to have bread. This is not okay – both for my physical or mental health. I wanted to lose weight to feel better about myself and have more confidence but the process was doing just the opposite. Yet, I became obsessed with this industry because I was convinced it was going to make me skinny. The company advertised so many before and after pictures so it must be guaranteed to work, right?

Wrong. People forget that every human is genetically different and not designed to have the same weight or appearance. This can be difficult for individuals, especially women, to grasp when dealing with their weight.  Deb Burgard uses the metaphor that humans are like different dog breeds and we can only determine our breed based the natural weight we fall into if we live a good life. Therefore, since we do not starve dogs to turn them into a different breed, we should not starve ourselves to make an unnatural weight seem normal (Burgard, 44).

Nevertheless, powerful institutions, like the medical field, have created this constant obsession over weight. For instance, Pinterest has its own Health and Fitness tab that offers pages on top of pages of tips for quick weight lost, body transformation, and recipes for detoxing and metabolism boosters .  Since this section is called Health and fitness, it illustrates that in order for an individual to be considered healthy; they must lost weight by following certain dieting and exercise programs without taking in to consideration individual differences, the physical and mental problems it causes, and the journey to having a health lifestyle – it simply implies health as being skinny.

Health at Every Size argues that becoming healthy should be a lifelong process that focuses on an individual’s emotional and physical well-being, self-acceptance of one’s shape, size, and physical features, and the enjoyment of exercising and eating health (Burgard, 42). Health at Every Size does not focus on physical appearance or weight of all individuals but instead the process of becoming healthy. Simply focusing on a lower BMI and the health label causes an emotional toll on the individual, decreases self-acceptance of one’s own body due to constant comparisons, and turns exercise into a chore or obligation.  In ”What is ‘Health at Every Size?”, Deb Burgard provides an example of a scenario where the medical field supports weight loss techniques used by overweight individuals but they diagnose these same techniques as an eating disorder in smaller individuals. How can this be acceptable? This leads to individuals constantly worrying about food consumption patterns on a daily basis, feeling guilty after over indulging in certain foods and then feel obligated to exercise for many hours a day to burn off extreme amounts of calories.


Instead of encouraging individuals to solely focusing on weight lost as the ultimate goal to health, the medical field needs to encourage individuals to learn to appreciate their body and create a health and happiness mentality. Over the past few months I have started to shift my way of thinking away from my constant fear of weight gain and physical appearance. Now I focus on exercise as a stress relieve and eating healthy as enjoyable. I would much rather go for a run or eat a salad than sit on the couch and eat ice cream because I personally enjoy these activities way more. I do not deny myself food when my stomach tells me I am hungry or when I am having the occasional sweet tooth craving. This is the true definition of health living. I do not find myself constantly stressing or feeling guilty about the various foods I consumed or feel obligated to go to the gym. Living a healthy style has made me healthier than any diet or exercise program I attempted in the past. 

References
Burgard, Beb. (2009). What is “health at every size”?. In M. Wann (Ed.), The fat studies reader. (pp. 42-  52).                  New York, NY: New York University Press. 

1 comment:

  1. Do you think the medical world is ready/willing to accept this type of movement? HAES seems like a more holistic approach to health, which the medical world seems to be shifting towards but I can't see the movement being embraced by the medical world without lots of convincing.

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