Well Advised
Dear Curious about HAES,
Take a moment and think about what your life would be like if you didn’t worry about your body shape, dislike your body size, or want to change your appearance. Shifting the way we look at our body shape, understanding our size, and accepting our appearance can drastically change and improve our overall quality of life and is KEY to healing relationships with food and our bodies.
Let's start with a little history. In “Health at EVERY Size,” written in 2008, Linda Bacon proposed the revolutionary idea that you can be healthy regardless of the number on the scale. The size of one’s pants doesn’t determine health; the functioning of one’s body based on metrics like blood pressure, heart rate, and lab results can give us a more accurate measure of health than the single variable of weight can.
And, even more holistically, Linda Bacon’s Health at Every Size (HAES) model takes into account all parts of a person’s being, such as their psychological, spiritual, biological, and physical health.
Check out this information on the science behind the idea of HAES for facts that will challenge your inner critic that's screaming, "You can't tell me that weight doesn't affect health!"
HAES is a stepping stone for many to begin seeing that a person’s weight is not the sole determining factor of their health. Linda simplifies Health at Every Size by focusing on five key themes: Enhancing health, size acceptance, pleasure of eating well, the joy of movement, and an end to weight bias.
A person can enhance their health by attending to multidimensional aspects of their health, without focusing on weight loss. Enhancing health includes social, emotional, and spiritual health, not just physical health.
Size acceptance requires respecting, loving, and embracing the range of others’ bodies, and turning that same love and acceptance inwards towards oneself (sounds epic, right?). For a step by step guide to body acceptance check out our Well Advised archives.
By using internal cues to eat when hungry and stop when full, eating becomes a pleasurable, fun activity instead of one loaded with conflict, guilt, and restriction. The goal is to eat for well being instead of weight control. Check out this great video by Kati Morton where she gives a few quicks tips on the values and principles of intuitive eating.
Movement becomes joyful when all forms of physical activity are validated and encouraged, so that a person can choose how they move, instead of being forced into a frustrating exercise routine. Roslyn Mays, a beautiful badass woman, talks about the ways she redefined her relationship to her body and movement through pole dancing. Check out this New York Times documentary to hear a little bit more about her journey.
Weight bias can be ended when the b e a u t i f u l diversity of body size is appreciated (YAS QUEEN), and when the true nature of health is understood as being disconnected from weight. The more that we realize there is beauty and worth in every single body, the closer we get to acceptance and love of those in all bodies.
It is important for us all to remember that we know nothing about a person’s lifestyle simply by looking at their body. A person’s weight will vary over the course of their lifetime. There are people who are okay with that variation. There are even people who are happy in fat bodies. Not every fat person hates their body. Not every fat person feels compelled or wants to diet. There are hundreds and thousands of men and women across the world who have decided to make peace with their bodies by viewing health holistically. They have chosen to accept their body in all of its wonder, chosen to show love, care, and pride.
Sometimes I think about the fact that I spent over a decade hating my body, trying to change my body, feeling disappointed in my body, feeling shame around the size of my body, and it never got me anywhere. I just drove myself deeper and deeper into the hell of an eating disorder, into the cycle of feeling like I failed, and into patterns of avoidance. And then there came a time where I started to think, “What would I lose if I accepted by body?” Clearly, hating my body hadn't been working. Clearly, wanting to change my body only reinforced the narrative that I was not allowed to have a body at all.
So, I decided to lean into body acceptance. Lean into health as a holistic approach. Lean into intuitive eating and joyful movement. I decided I was gonna use HAES as my guidepost. I decided I was never going to get on a scale again (honestly - it feels like magic). I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. So, I did and I haven't looked back.
Will you join us at looking at health through a holistic approach?
If you’re feeling contemplative today, consider journaling…
What do you have to lose by looking at your body through a holistic approach?
Stay Well,
The WW team