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The health at every size movement and how it will change the way you look at food—and yourself

By Lindsey Arens

It’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s the belief that a number on a scale or the size of your pants does not determine health. Health at Every Size (HAES) is a movement that supports people of every size and challenges the mindset that thin = healthy. If you are intrigued at all at this point, go buy Dr. Linda Bacon’s book Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight right now—I placed the link below. It’s a game changer.

If we face the facts, focusing on the “obesity epidemic” in this country has done nothing but drive millions of dollars into the diet and weight loss industry that is set up to make you fail. I’ll say it again for the people in the back: the diet industry is a business = it wants your money = it doesn’t want you to have success. If you had success, they would be out of business because you wouldn’t be buying their products anymore. Our country’s obsession with being thin has created countless problems for people who at one point knew exactly how to eat normally. We have constant food preoccupation, low fat everything (gross!), food “intolerances” (ah-hem, everyone is suddenly intolerant to gluten), size discrimination, self-hatred and eating disorders on the rise.

HAES is the basic premise that weight does not equal health. Health is determined by overall wellness in: emotional, physical and spiritual parts of our life. Health means eating throughout the day and moving for joy. Health means respecting our body’s need for energy and honoring when we need to eat, and when we need to stop. Health is accepting that our bodies are biologically meant to fall into a weight range (we call this a “set point”). When we try to move our weight below our set point, our bodies are smart enough to fight back to keep you at a weight that it knows is good for you.

Health is embracing size diversity and challenging our culture’s fat-phobia.
Speaking of epidemics, the epidemic I’m concerned about is yo-yo dieting. It’s a nightmare. I’ve worked with countless individuals who have dieted for 40+ years, who walk into my office feeling like it’s their fault they can’t keep the weight off. Nearly every person who talks to me who has yo-yo dieted, carries shame and guilt with them everywhere they go. There is no more pleasure in eating, and there is constant agony over what they “can and can’t eat.”

When we start talking about the HAES movement, it’s like the weight of 20 diets is being lifted off their shoulders. You mean I can eat something other than oatmeal, a salad and grilled chicken? You mean I can actually eat desserts? You mean I can stop counting calories? Yes. Yes. Yes. HAES is about accepting that health means eating variety and eating things we enjoy. It means eating 6 times per day and that there should probably be a form of carbohydrate, protein and fat at every meal. It means your fat source can be butter and not just avocado or grapeseed oil. It means avocado is fine too, but that butter is equally as fine. It means you can eat salad, but you can also eat tacos. It means getting enough greens and goodies too.

Here’s my challenge to you. Eat 3 meals and 3 snacks per day (if you don’t know where to start with this, I can hook you up with some brilliant dietitians). Move your body for joy – this means moving because it feels good, not because you’re trying to “earn” dessert. See what happens when you free yourself from food rules and preoccupation. Allow your body to weigh what it needs to weigh. Your body will naturally move into its set point when you feed and move it regularly. This is where acceptance comes in, because sometimes this means we biologically will never settle at a weight that is too low for us.

Ending rant: I am so sick of the social media posts of people working out followed by comments like “Burning off my breakfast!!” or “Guess now I deserve that piece of pizza!” If you need to work out to justify eating a normal meal, you need to re-evaluate your relationship with exercise and also this little thing called worth. Worthiness is not tied to food. We all deserve to eat breakfast regardless of whether you did hot yoga this morning or if you barely rolled out of bed in time to get your kids to school.

Lindsey is a psychotherapist at Elle and you can meet her at the Health At Every Size workshop that she will host on Wednesday, March 21st at 6pm.

Check out the book by Dr. Linda Bacon, Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight.