Women of Central Florida, I write to you today with an earnest message straight from my heart (and hips). Right now our media landscape is saturated with messages about our bodies and 2014. The message is clear: during this new year, you need to get skinnier. Stop being fat. Start eating “right.” Buy a product to help you do all that.
Stop.
Stop for a moment and ruminate on this: it’s okay if you’re happy with your body exactly how it is. It’s okay if you’re fine with your chubby self. It’s okay if you don’t want to spend the next year chiding yourself for your weight. It’s okay if you start believing every body is a beach body and you stop worrying about “swimsuit season.” This is Florida. It’s always swimsuit season. And you always have a body. Whatever your body looks like right now today is okay.
What if we stopped worrying about weight in 2014? What if we started thinking about health and happiness instead? And when I say health, I’m not talking about calories and glutens and paleo. What I’m talking about is well-being, sanity, vibrance, and energy.
If you want more energy and a greater sense of well-being, exercise. Do something you love that gets your heart racing: sex, roller skating, hula hooping on the beach. Whatever.
Eat more vegetables if you’d like to feel stronger, think more clearly, and simply have a prettier plate. Plus veggies actually taste better than french fries.
Rest well. Drink water. Pray. Whatever you do, though, forget your body weight for a second. Do good things for yourself and let your weight fall where it may. Curate the media around you to reinforce a Health at Every Size philosophy.
When I say to you, it’s okay, I don’t mean it flippantly. I mean it with the heft of my lifetime of weight-obsession behind me, with a weight loss surgery behind me, with a dissertation on Health at Every Size philosophy behind me, and with my big butt behind me. I’m not bombarding you with facts and figures (95% of all diets fail) and research (more than 40 genetic alleles determine sleep pattern, hormone regulation, fat storage and distribution, and how much and when and what you want to eat, all of which impact body size) because the one thing I want you to hear is this: You’re fine. Your body is amazing. Take great care of yourself in 2014, but not for all the reasons you’re hearing in the media.
Above all, enjoy your body this year!
If this message resonates with you and you’d like to learn more about body positivity and health, please check out these resources:
The Health at Every Size Community: www.haescommunity.org/
The Association for Size Diversity and Health: www.sizediversityandhealth.org/
The Body Positive Project: www.thebodypositive.org/
