The Non-Diet Approach

American’s love dieting. The perceived need for thinness drives men, women, and children to tweak their eating habits every day. People try cutting calories, eliminating carbohydrates, and loading up on protein to slim down and tone up. 

According to the National Eating Disorders Association - http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/ - twenty-five percent of American men and forty-five percent of American women are on a diet at any given time. Ninety-five percent of this population will regain the lost weight within five years. Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors (skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting and taking laxatives). It’s horrifying. Why the tragedy, you might ask? The answer is simple. Diets are not sustainable. They harm the body to a great extent. Overly cutting calories starves the body and prepares it for famine. Eliminating carbs, the body’s primary fuel source, forces it to break down existing body tissue to make glucose fuel. Once the body uses it’s needed amount of protein, it must break down the extras for elimination. These are all exhausting, stressful processes that leave dieters tired, hungry, and grumpy.

A more realistic path to achieve health is the non-diet approach. Eat when hungry and stop when full. Choose a variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Eat that cookie if it will satisfy your craving. Exercise because it makes you feel good. Aim for total health and well-being. The body will adjust to it’s natural healthy weight if treated well and fed as needed. There are no “good” or “bad” foods - every item is acceptable and the body will express how much and how often it should be fed.  And when the body is restless and desires physical movement, exercise. It really is that simple.

Counting calories and fad diets are overrated. Health is not about size; it’s about being the best body you can be. That largely means learning to understand and trust your body. This will increase self-esteem, personal power, and happiness. That’s the basic point of dieting really, isn’t it? Happiness. Confidence. Understand your body, treat it well, and it will be happy! :)

http://www.unh.edu/health-services/ohep/nutrition/non-diet-approach-health-every-size-haes

Opinion: Achieving Health

It’s the beginning of spring, summer is around the corner, and what consumes everyone’s mind? Getting the beach body that American insist will bring happiness, love, and success. 

To achieve this blurred perception of perfection, men, women, and even children will engage in risky behaviors by overly cutting calories, going awol with excessive exercise, and worshiping fad diets. Many will do anything necessary to shed pounds, tone muscle, and strive to become the photoshopped idols American’s constantly see in popular culture even though the body type portrayed in advertising as the ideal is possessed naturally by only 5% of American females (National Eating Disorders Association). 

American’s are missing the bigger picture. We overly focus on being thin versus healthy. The obesity and heart disease epidemic scares us into believing that weight loss is health. Constant exposure to unrealistic body images in the media convinces society that they are inadequate and unhappy. This can be harmful, especially to young adults and adolescents who are experimenting and adopting life-long behaviors. The National Eating Disorder Association released that over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives. Furthermore, 35-57% of adolescent girls engage in crash dieting, fasting, self-induced vomiting, diet pills, or laxatives. There is so much focus on appearance beginning at such a young age that we are blind to true meaning of being healthy. 

It is correct to identify obesity, weight gain, and high body mass index (BMI) as a growing problem among the United States and the link to chronic disease. This a real and serious issue. However, more significance should be placed on overall health as opposed to size alone. Thinness does not always parallel health. Health exists at many shapes and sizes and individuals should be encouraged to find their personal measure of health. 

Americans should consider stepping back to re-evaluate what is more important: shedding pounds to fit into a smaller size pant, or maintaing a healthy body that allows a successful and happy lifestyle?