Conversations About Weight

Consider the conversations you have heard regarding weight, fatness or thinness during the last week? What have you read about these issues lately? Here is a sampling from my archive:

• A client of mine who is a handsome, bright, and kind college male told me that he fears becoming fat because he believes no one will like him. (I reminded him that Santa is quite popular.)
• Ashton Kutcher was quoted as saying"If the fat people gave the skinny people more food we could just eat ... we could solve obesity and hunger at the same time". Brilliant!?! God help Demi Moore if she ever gains weight!
• I read a quote from Susan Wooley, PhD, Past President, American Academy for Eating Disorders stating "If shame could cure obesity there wouldn't be a fat women in the world" How true. I thought of my client who has dieted to a weight of over 300 pounds. She cried tears of shame as she recounted her past diet failures. I assured her that it is the diet industry that should be ashamed.
• Several sources report that young girls in our country are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of nuclear war, cancer or losing their parents
• Many magazines have taken polls that show most women would rather lose IQ points or one of their limbs than become fat.

Let's be a part of changing these conversations.

On the other hand ... what positive conversations, articles, quotes, etc. have you been privy to lately. Please share! We can encourage each other!

Fighting Obesity without Causing Eating Disorders

There was a great letter to the editor published in the Tennessean recently. Pat Ballard quoted from many of the recent articles warning of the obesity epidemic American children are facing. She mentioned that several articles identified listing calorie counts on menus as a very proactive effort to shrink the growing waistlines of our children. I appreciated her candor as she went on to describe how exposure to height/weight charts, calorie counting information and diet articles in women's magazines at age 11 began her descent into a 22 year battle with eating disorders. What might have seemed like benign information distribution nearly ended this women's life. How many others have similar stories? Will more conversations about calories, fat grams and BMI measurements enhance the health and well being of our children or ourselves? I feel very certain that we need to change the conversation. Let's talk about the need for kids to limit screen time, move their bodies more and have fewer menus in front of their faces in the first place. None of us need more things to obsess about in relation to food, eating and weight. Calories on menus will not cure obesity and may contribute to disordered eating.
What do you think?

Body Image Idealization

Trying to understand the factors that lead us to idealize a certain body image or weight is complicated. Our environment at home and school, what we watch on TV and the magazines we read can all exert an influence on what images we idealize. If children hear parents berating themselves for having fat thighs or a big belly, they are likely to view their bodies in a critical, demeaning fashion. "Weightism" experienced at school by a child by being teased or ctitized in regards to their body size may plant seeds of body/self-hatred. Research has demonstrated that many girls and women experience lowered self-esteem and a more negative body image after viewing images of artificially thin models/actresses from popular media sources. The pressing question is how DO we become activists and change the harmful conversations that are driving vulnerable people towards destructive diets and disordered eating behaviors? I would propse the first step is that we need to resolve our own percptions that might be conflicted. This thought struck me as I read an article from Advertising Age titled "Researchers Find Thin Models Make Viewers Like Brands More, but Themselves Less". Let's face it ... marketers are not in the business of enhancing the body images of women. They will continue using the models that will sell the most product for the brand that is being promoted. While the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty has already reached millions and has a goal of reaching 5 million girls by 2010, has it really changed what we as a population view as attractive? What do you find attractive when you viewing advertising. More importantly, what has influenced your view.

Perhaps the first conversation we need to change truly is the one we have with ourselves.
Please share your views. We can learn from one another!

The "Perfect" Body!?!

One of the myths in our culture is that you can somehow, someway achieve a "perfect" body. Have you ever stopped long enough to ask yourself what your own definition of body perfection might be? As you try to conjure up an image in your mind, the next question would be ... where did that image come from? Is that image based on truth and reality? Or, the latest commercial for a diet product?
A former client of mine once said "If I can be content with me as I am, I think my body is getting more and more perfect ... perfectly me". I immediately wrote this down and requested permission to quote her. Very profound!
Change the conversation in your head and in our culture. Accept, care for and optimize the body that is your own unique package. That body will be perfectly you!

What is the "Truth Channel?

Welcome to the "introductory" posting of this blog. Those of you who know me understand what I mean when I say "trust the truth channel". For those of you who are wondering what in the world I mean ... here goes!
I have never met anyone who didn't know that they really can't lose 10 pounds in 10 days. Most people know that real women and men don't look like the artificial images that are shoved down our throats every day. Yet, we fall victim to these distorted messages time and time again. We undertake artificial measures (like dieting) to achieve artificial results. Let's encourage each other to trust the truth channel that we all inherently have in our noggin. Let's expose and discuss the harmful misinformation we come across. Share how you have learned to trust the truth and challenge the diet mentality so prevalent in our culture. We are all on this journey together!
Reba Sloan, MPH, LRD, FAED