What's Eating Us: Women, Food, and the Epidemic of Body Anxiety

by Cole Kazdin

The Health at Every Size (HAES) paradigm takes the position that people of all sizes can be healthy.22 Embracing the reality that we may not be able to control our weight and that overwhelming scientific evidence supports that setting out to lose weight very likely will not work, the best thing we can do for our health is to take the focus off of our weight. In part, this involves • working on liking your body as is, right now (I know, I know, but that’s why I wrote “liking” not “loving”), noting that body acceptance isn’t just about us; there is a diverse range of body types in the world; • practicing intuitive eating, tuning in to the body’s hunger cues, eating nutritious foods, knowing that there’s room for barbecue-jacked-4K-whatever bullshit in the context of an overall healthy diet; and • being physically active in some way every day—but like, it doesn’t have to be Olympic weight lifting; find something you enjoy. The HAES approach has been found to reduce both stress and depression, improve blood pressure, and a whole host of other positive health outcomes.23 Unlike dieting, HAES is something people can sustain over their lifetimes.