Health at every size – or is it?
PRINT PAGE
Health at every size – or is it?
There is a current trend in weight management which is known as Health at Every Size (HAES). In many ways this could be seen as a positive approach to health as it emphasises the quality of the food eaten rather than weight loss and caloric rules, and people are encouraged to see themselves as beautiful no matter what their size.
And why not? It makes sense! We are all naturally divine and beautiful in our essence, and this is something which should be celebrated, independent of our physical appearance. Likewise, it makes sense to focus on the type of food we eat and focus on healthy options, rather than counting calories in and calories out.
But here is the part that just doesn’t make sense. What is the definition of health, or for that matter, healthy eating? According to the HAES method, you are healthy and so need not worry about your weight if the results of your annual health check and blood tests come back normal, despite your weight. Now whilst there is no doubt that it’s important to maintain normal blood sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure etc., does the normality of these parameters indicate health, or is it simply indicative of an absence of disease?
“Health is not the absence of ill-health.
Serge Benhayon Teachings & Revelations for The Livingness Volume III, ed 1, p 529
‘Health’ is a joyous vitality that embraces life and its purpose with no reservations.”
Even the World Health Organisation defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’. Based on this definition, can health and being overweight really exist together?
Our body is a marker of truth, as it communicates with us all of the time, and in that we can truly start to understand what is going on for us if we ‘tune back in’ to what our body is telling us. For example, if we are gaining weight and it is making us uncomfortable, we can feel it and that it is not normal.
“When it comes to the true state of our being and its daily beingness, who should we listen to – the mind or the body? The answer is very clear but few like to admit the unconditional honesty of their body.”
Serge Benhayon Teachings & Revelations for The Livingness Volume III, ed 1, p 571
Just because being overweight is common, whereby now in many countries the majority of the population has become overweight, it should not be accepted as ‘normal’. If we were to examine the Australian population in the 1970’s we would see that only a small percentage of the population was overweight. These days being overweight is so common that it has become ‘normal’, so normal in fact, that as described above, there are certain schools of thought that endorse living with and accepting overweight.
But is this stance really ok? Wouldn’t it be wiser to acknowledge that being overweight is itself a sign that something is not quite right, just as we would with a blood test that was outside of the reference range?
“Just because it may take many years to develop more pressing ill symptoms from our unhealthy habits does not make the choices right or good at the beginning of the self-abusing process, when there are fewer symptoms and it is easier to recover from the self-inflicted maltreatment. Do you get the level of truth that these words offer?”
Serge Benhayon Teachings & Revelations for The Livingness Volume III, ed 1, p 538
We need to start listening to our body before the onset of illness and disease and recognise that being overweight is already a sign that we are living outside the natural impulses of our body.
Too often we hear the stories of how “I’ve done everything, but just can’t lose weight – it must be my genes”, yet as little as 50 years ago those same genes were not making your grandparents fat. Being overweight is not usually a sign of genetic problems; it is a sign that we need to look at what is going on in our lives, that we may be seeking comfort from our daily struggles with food and beverages, and that this is the reason why we are eating more food than we need.
The other disturbing side of the HAES approach to weight management is that overweight is also OK so long as you are eating quality food, or in other words, adhering to nationally prescribed healthy eating guidelines. Again, I would reiterate that ‘the body is the marker of all truth’.
Put it this way: if you were to follow a weight loss diet that made you fat, would you stay on that diet? Of course not, it would be ridiculous to do so!
Therefore, if you are honestly following what is considered nutritionally sound expert dietary advice but remain overweight, wouldn’t this also give cause to pause and question your food choices and perhaps find a new way of eating that is true for you? Might we consider that being overweight is already a sign that something is not right in our lives?
What if we were to live naturally under divine impulse of our body to eat only the amount of food required for us to live?
What if we could connect to our inner-most way of being and feel what is true for us to consume? We could feel and know just the right type and amount of food to eat.
It can be hard to come back to the basics of healthy eating when we are constantly surrounded by the temptations of food that we find all around us in modern day living. However, we can come back to basics and recognise true ‘normal’ and true health and acknowledge that being overweight is a communication from our body to reassess our diet and lifestyle, and the need to find a way to reconnect to our inner knowing of how, what and when to eat.
So before we continue on the merry-go-round of yoyo dieting, let us truly deal with our weight and relationship with food by first looking at this connection with our inner-most. Let us begin to build a relationship with our body that allows us to feel which choices are true for us, to assist in not only our food choices, but in our whole life and the way we are living.
Filed under
Body awareness, Diets, Healthy diet, Losing weight, Weight-loss
