I saw a clip of a morning show a few weeks ago discussing whether or not it is ok to be fat from a health perspective. I don’t remember the channel, but Kelly Bliss was one of the panelists. She looked so healthy and plump:-). There was also a thin blonde woman who said that obesity kills period and a corpulent other lady who made a video of how much she loved her body. Kelly Bliss said that you should just exercise and eat well and no matter your size you should be fine.

The show was very interesting to me - I was a bit torn about what to believe because all the ladies were talking about how they are absolutely right yet they were saying opposite things. The thin blonde woman was saying that it is very wrong for people to come to the media and start spreading the word that people should always eat what they feel like eating. She said that children in the US are fatter today than ever before and it is because they eat Doritos and ice cream all the time. She was concerned about obesity and how it kills - she cited statistics.

Kelly Bliss said that she exercises like 5 times a week, eats healthy things and yet she is not thin. She said that there is nothing wrong with being round if you eat right and move enough - it may just be that your body’s natural weight deviates from the currently idolized size.

My question is distantly related to the above. There are two things being said in the HAES literature: that you should eat whatever you want on one hand and that you should eat healthy on the other. What if those two things are not the same? Also: what about children? Should they get to eat whatever they want or should parents guide them? I am just not sure that without their fully-formed judgement capabilities they ould be able to know when and what they want. After all, I just wanted to chocolate all the time when I was a kid and I highly doubt that is all I needed :-)

Hi Angie,

This is such a great question.  I love the way you’re researching what is right for you and staying open to different possibilities.

I actually think that healthy eating and eating what you want can very easily become one and the same thing.  Bear with me here because I know this may sound a little strange.

First, what is healthy eating?  I would define it as eating mostly whole foods—lots of greens, whole grains, healthy fats, and protein, and staying away as much as possible from highly processed foods.  I think most people will agree with that definition, give or take the grains.  But healthy eating is also about more than that—it’s about having a healthy relationship with food, where you savor and enjoy your food, gauge your hunger and satiety levels, and notice when you’re eating from hunger or eating emotionally.

Then, what does it mean to eat whatever you want?  It sounds like the show you watched portrayed it as eating junk food all day, but I don’t think that’s really want most people want.  If we recharacterize it as “eating whatever your body wants” then it takes on a different tone.  Eating whatever your body wants means going within and checking in with yourself.  It means asking yourself, “what am I really hungry for right now?”  You could hear the answer as “protein” or “a salad” or “doritos” or “nothing” or “a walk in the park” or “a hug”.  Eating whatever you want means listening to the cues that your body gives you and satisfying that need.  In other words, it is a lot like healthy eating.

Getting to the point where “healthy eating” and “eating whatever you want” are really one and the same can be a long process.  It can even mean a period where you end up eating all of the foods that you once forbade yourself from eating.  I do this process with many of my clients as part of my program.

With respect to kids, I think it’s really important to teach children about whole foods, about savoring foods, and about how certain foods affect their bodies positively and negatively.  I think if you give children real information and don’t punish them for the way that they want to eat, that they will learn for themselves what really nourishes them.

I hope that answers your question.  Thanks for bringing it to the forum!

The query the first user raises is a valuable one.  After spending a lot of time on this website and others devoted to fat activism and health in the truest sense (one that is size-agnostic), it is clear that there is a part of the population that can be large, and healthy, and healthy not in spite of that size.  Similarly, there are people that are thinner than what society deems “healthy”, and those people can potentially be healthy as well.

On the other hand, there can be thin people that are not healthy.  This could be due to a variety of factors; these possible factors could include an unhealthy attitude towards eating, or a more specifically unhealthy attitude towards personal health in an effort to purposefully drive their weight down.

Looking at this picture, three specific groups have been identified: fat people that are healthy, skinny people that are healthy, and skinny people that are not healthy.  Clearly, a fourth group has been omitted.  My issue with some of the statements above is that it neglects even the possibility that there are fat people who are not healthy.

Golda, I appreciate your remarks regarding eating “what you want”.  By your definition, this would consititute eating food that is healthy for you and nourishes your body.  What this neglects is that what people “want” to eat is often not what is healthy.  I love bacon cheeseburgers, Skittles, Coke, entire plates of buffalo wings, and fried mozzarella.  Based on the clientelle at some of the establishments I frequent, I am not alone.  There have been stretches of my existence that have consisted of a diet this limited and unhealthy.  Now, while I “wanted” to eat those things, I would doubt highly that this is the diet that you would encourage me to eat.  It seems like a cop-out to say “Sure, eat what you want! It’s good for you!”, place an asterisk by “want” and then redefine this phrase as a healthy diet.  If someone calls 911 about a house fire, don’t dress a nurse in a firesuit and send him/her to the house.

The health movement, and fat activism in particular, strive to empower people to accept themselves for who they are, regardless of size.  My impression is that the compulsion to tell people to “eat what you want” comes from the same place that telling them it is healthy and acceptable to be fat comes from.  There is a difference here.  We should be empowered to accept ourselves for who we are, fat or skinny, and for that we necessitate support, but we should also feel responsible for our personal health, and for that we necessitate personal accountability.

To paraphrase the original poster’s query, “I am receiving conflicting messages regarding what is and is not healthy, how this pertains to personal health, and especially how this pertains to size.  What should I believe?”  It seems that the response should be that health is size-agnostic and that size is not symptomatic of healthy or unhealthy choices.  You can be fat and healthy or thin and unhealthy.  On the other hand, we are all responsible for our own personal health, and that means that regardless of size, we might be or might not be living healthily, and we should strive to hold ourselves accountable for that.

* My goal was to respond in a manner that addressed size and health generally and does not aim to specifically target any one of the four groups mentioned.

Hi Kush,

Thanks for this response.  I agree with much of what you said.  And of course, I agree that there are thin people who are healthy and unhealthy and fat people who are healthy and unhealthy.  I also believe that there is both a spectrum of fat and thin and a spectrum of healthy and unhealthy.  In addition, I believe very strongly that nutritional and movement choices have a major impact on health, but are not necessarily a cure-all for all ailments.

That being said, I would encourage you to eat the diet of what would typically be deemed “bad foods” with a caveat.  I believe that people desire these foods for a number of reasons, a few of which are: (a) these foods are marketed heavily, (b) high fructose corn syrup and high amount of sugar and caffeine often have an addictive effect, and (c) dieters and non-dieters alike are being bombarded with the message that these foods are forbidden and shouldn’t be eaten.  This last point is a biggie from a psychological standpoint, as the more things are forbidden the more we as humans desire them.  So I would say to eat these “bad” foods with the caveat that you: (a) remind yourself that you are allowed to have as much as you want and it is not forbidden, (b) taste every morsel of food and pay attention while you’re eating, and (c) gauge, while you’re eating, your hunger and fullness levels.  I guarantee you that if you eat slowly and taste your food, don’t forbid yourself anything, eat without guilt, and notice your hunger levels, that, eventually (and it may take months) your cravings for this food will change and you will start listening to what your body craves, which, 9 times out of 10, will not be skittles or at least not a lot of skittles.

I agree that we should hold ourselves accountable for our relative health, in most instances.  But we should also be accountable to locating within ourselves the truth of our real desires, whether they be for kale or skittles or something in between or something that is not satisfied by food.

These comments are all so interesting! This feels a bit like a revelation to me.

There have been periods in my life when I was focused specifically on limiting the amount of calories I consume so I cut out everything that I thought I should eat and ate only what I desired. I though a frequent problem is that people think of dinner and what they should eat - let’s say you think you should eat a piece of chicken with rice and some vegetables. Now, the problem is, if you only ate that meal because it seemed like “the right thing to do” and not because you were craving it or even hungry for it, then you will want something else. I often find myself in this situation. I just had dinner and I think to myself… I want something else too… . So in order to avoid this kind of eating first based on assumed needs and after that based on wants I cut out anything other than what I wanted. This resulted in a diet (and I just mean “way of eating here” as I was not actually limiting my food consumption) of about 5 things for me for about 6 months: I ate my favorite kind of chocolate, salad with a ton of thousand island dressing, popcorn, pickled cabbage and drank chocolate milk. My calorie intake was down and I lost weight, but boy, that does not sound healthy. I ate what I wanted, what my body craved, but I was not eating in healthy way. I thought that my body would tell me what I want.

Then later, without focusing on eating in a healthy way, I actually started doing so. How did that happen? I learned about more options! I tried avocados and papayas and loved both! I started craving them. I ate a great spinach salad with blue cheese, cranberries, roasted walnuts and balsaic vinegar dressing and found is sooo yummy. I am still eating everything I want, but because I am aware of so many more tastes that I enjoy, I want more.

This is why I think that actually following the recommendations for “food of the week” on this site or any other you prefer is great! A few weeks ago the food of the week here was swiss chard and so my boyfriend and I bought some and he made a pasta sause from swiss chard that was AMAZING. That dish is now one of my favorites and sometimes I crave it. Another week before the food of the week was brussel sprouts (I think) so I looked a recipe where you just put olive ol and parmesan cheese on the veggies - it was sooo tasty.

So now I know what I need to do to crave more healthy things :-) I need to give myself the option of craving vegetables and fruits and such by trying them in the first place. I would encourage all of you to try new things every once in a while, who knows when you will “meet” your new favorite food?

I’m brand new here. I’d like to say that the media forgets or ignores the positives of being what the media considers “fat.” Not as fat as I am now, at 308 give or take, but about 160 or so for a woman my height and bone structure (5’3” and medium). I LOVE feeling lushious and soft. I wouldn’t want to be skinny for anything in the world. I do want to weigh less, and it is a constant struggle for me. People act like having an ass or hips is a crime. It’s getting better, but come on, curvy women LOOK better and feel better.
Even at the size I am now I get asked out when I am at the store. I get smiles, and almost never get ugly looks or comments. I feel GREAT about how I look. Not my size, but how I look. And I am a GREAT person.
I don’t always feel that way. It helps my husband treats me like I have a super sexy body. =0) It helps my husband is a really big guy too. He still makes me feel small. He isn’t fat, just really big and tall.
I am 36, and it has taken me this long to realize no body cares how YOU look really because they are worrying how they look. And the ones who treat you badly don’t matter because they are probably horrible and desperately unhappy people anyway.
None of this stops me in my quest to lose some weight though. =) I am finally just doing what I want and what is easiest for me. I am trying MY way. We will see how that works.
All THAT said, I am here because I want to feel even better about me because I still find that *I* have a prejudice against fat women, long held and taught to me from childhood. I want to work on that, and learn to accept fat women too for just what they are. I have all those same prejudices that we see on TV. Fat women have no self-control. They are lazy. They are slovenly. They have no self-confidence (and all of thoughts are directed towards me in my head too, though I know they are not really true.) That is why I say SHIT on the skinny woman who was talking! What does she know! I diet myself half to death. Work my BUTT off (though it is still there of course.) And I eat better than most thin peoople I know. I am sick of these fat-prejudice thoughts in my head. I hope to find help in getting rid of them.

I just wanted to share the following clip with people. The thin woman being discussed in this thread is named MeMe Roth, and today (6-17-09) she was on ABC’s Good Morning America discussing her parenting methods when it comes to being fat.

I thought that those interested in this topic might like to see her proclaim her most recent message and hear about other people’s reactions to it. Please come back here to share your thoughts with us.

MeMe Roth on Good Morning America

I would also like to note that MeMe Roth is also crazy and is hardly the poster child for “healthy eating” by any stretch.

Wasn’t able to see this but it sounds interesting. I think i need to find the clip on yt.

Regards,
Giana
Pret voiture