We often think of New Year’s Resolutions as a chance to make up or change the things we didn’t like about the year before. This is normally directed at ourselves since most resolutions focus on how we can change who we are by making ourselves better. Living in a body that you hate, due to your weight or any other reason that you want to change it, normally leads you to enter the New Year down a path filled with self destructive behaviors that in the end do more harm than good.
Learning to love ones self or have a healthier relationship with your body can be a really positive way to start the year if you are not doing it from a negative place. One of the best ways that this can be found if you find yourself wanting to diet is to do the exact opposite and ditch dieting. A health movement that has become part of the forefront of the fat rights movement is Health at Every Size. This is in so many ways one of the simplest ways to not only have a better connection with your body, especially if you have or still are suffering through disordered eating patterns or weight loss attempts. This is about finding that connection with your body that is lost during weight loss attempts that create an inner conflict between your body and your mind.
This was the last step that I needed to finding complete happiness within myself. Learning to listen to my body instead of listening to others about how I should take care of myself was the tipping point to finding what I was looking for. This means finding joy in moving my body, eating intuitively or listening to hunger cues and knowing what I need to nourish my body while feeling good living in it. This means having a connection that stops denying the body I live in.
Basic Principles of Health At Every Size®
- Accepting and respecting the diversity of body shapes and sizes.
- Recognizing that health and well-being are multi-dimensional and that they include physical, social, spiritual, occupational, emotional, and intellectual aspects.
- Promoting all aspects of health and well-being for people of all sizes.
- Promoting eating in a manner which balances individual nutritional needs, hunger, satiety, appetite, and pleasure.
- Promoting individually appropriate, enjoyable, life-enhancing physical activity, rather than exercise that is focused on a goal of weight loss.
From the Association for Size, Diversity and Health
Links
Fat Body Politics 