Health at Every Size ™
Health at Every Size ™ (HAES) is based on the wealth of research demonstrating that being in an “overweight” or larger body does not correlate with poorer health outcomes. Chronic diseases occur across BMI categories; they aren’t limited to the higher BMI categories. In fact, there is research to support the fact that a higher BMI, such as being considered “overweight,” is actually protective.
The premise behind HAES is focused on modifiable behaviors that are known to be health-promoting. These include habits that feel natural, such as enjoyable movement, nutritious yet satisfying meals, and supporting your emotional needs.
The HAES pledge is based on improving health through honoring your body’s needs. It encourages the adoption of habits for the sake of health and well-being rather than weight control. We know weight control to be ineffectual and even harmful. Health at Every Size ™ encourages:
-
Accepting and respecting the natural diversity of body sizes and shapes.
-
Eating in a flexible manner that values pleasure and honors internal cues of hunger, satiety and appetite.
-
Finding the joy in moving one’s body
Why Health At Every Size?
As Registered Dietitians, it is often assumed among the public, our friends and family, that we are experts on the subject of weight loss. While yes, we are savvy nutrition experts and stay up to date on the latest research. However, as Health at Every Size ™ informed providers, our goal is overall health, not thinness.
Our jobs are to empower our clients to achieve overall health and well-being. This can be done without rigid diets and food rules. We provide the skills and confidence to become more attuned eaters and focus on healthful behaviors, not specific numbers. This is because the literature shows that 95% of diets just don’t work in the long run. Thinness does not equate to health.
Because you can’t tell anything about a person’s health by looking at them.
Health at Every Size ™ aims to spread the message that you cannot tell anything about a person’s health by how they look on the outside, including their weight. Size diversity is a real, beautiful thing. There are many examples of people who are in larger bodies but perfectly healthy by any other standard. A wonderful video that puts this concept into perspective is called Poodle Science, which is worth watching.
Contrary to some beliefs - Health at Every Size ™ is not "giving up on your health". In fact, quite the opposite. However, instead of fixating on numbers and controlling your weight, HAES allows us to look at health as a big picture. We can put a focus on behaviors rather than the number on the scale. Let's dive into the why below.
The Science Behind weight control
There are things in our life we can control (our behaviors): getting to bed on time, eating consistent meals, engaging in joyful movement, the books and news we consume, how much money we spend, how much stock you put into other people’s opinions, etc.
But there are also those things that we cannot control: traffic, weather, other people’s opinions, our height, AND our weight. The multi-billion dollar dieting industry has you believe your weight is within your control. However, the evidence for sustainable weight loss isn’t there.
"Control" isn't sustainable
Poor outcomes result from a focus on attempts to control your weight or body size, instead of on the root of a behavior. For example, if you eat an entire bag of chips every day after work, you may decide you simply cannot have chips in the house and rule them off forever.
While this might work for the first few days, this seemingly innocent choice can build up a lot of charge around that food. As a result, a perfectly fine food becomes vilified and suddenly holds misplaced power over us. This could lead you to overeat the chips at the first opportunity, then “repent” with exercise you don’t actually enjoy, repeat.
Attempting to micromanage your food intake through restrictions, food rules and “self control” only sets us up for failure. This leaves us feeling frustrated with ourselves and constantly looking for the next foolproof diet or “lifestyle change.”
These attempts to control our weight through sheer willpower require us to tune out the internal signals and rely solely on these external cues. This drowns out our inner wisdom and leaves us susceptible to our surrounding environment.
This ultimately leads to weight gain, feeling out of control around food and losing touch of our natural hunger and fullness signals.
are bodies are smarter than we give them credit for
Set-point theory describes the well-researched biological mechanism that serves as our body’s internal weight-regulation system, almost like a thermostat.
Your set point is the weight range (about ten to twenty pounds) that your body aims to maintain via various means. Your body is extremely well-equipped to assure that you stay within this healthy range, whatever that means for YOU.
If we attempt to diet, suppress our appetite, deprive ourselves, etc., our bodies have a harder time maintaining this balance.
When we attempt to lose weight, our body enters “fight or flight” mode. Our body doesn’t know the difference between restricting for weight loss purposes and starvation; the response is the same. It likes to maintain the status quo. By doing this, we preserve a certain amount of body fat relative to our set point to protect us. When that status quo is threatened, our bodies adapt and kick in the survival instincts. This may include over-eating or binging, slowing our metabolism to hold onto energy reserves, and a host of other responses.
Attempting to override our body and micromanage our intake and energy expenditure is ultimately an act of self-sabotage.
Your set point weight is the weight you maintain when you:
-
-
Tune into and respond appropriately to your body’s signals of hunger and fullness.
-
Can go out for ice cream with friends or family without feeling guilty or the need to compensate later.
-
Grant yourself permission to eat all foods.
-
When we put weight loss on the back burner, we are able to rely more on our internal cues and let our body tell us what it needs.
your body is on your side
If you think back to 8th grade biology, you may remember the term homeostasis. Homeostasis is the delicate balance of internal, physical, and chemical conditions in our body. This also includes the healthy amount of fat that our body stores, which varies from person to person. Dieting and the diet mentality are what cause this to become out of whack due to repeated overriding of our body’s cues and signals.
As a result of giving into diet culture, we lose sight of the delicate mind-body connection. This disrupts the messages from our fat cells and gut to our brain about what our body truly needs.
your body's intuition
We are born with an innate ability to tune into our body’s messages for what it needs. However, somewhere along the way many of us lose that ability when we seek and rely on external cues for how to nourish and care for ourselves.
A strong emphasis on weight and other numbers makes it becomes nearly impossible to tune into internal cues. This cues enable us to care for ourselves supportively and to work on our health without the goal of weight loss.
Weight loss as a focus detracts us from pursuing true health. For instance, if you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, diet culture might have you believe the answer to your problems is a “sugar detox.” In reality, what you really need is a relaxing walk out in nature or to unplug from your phone and take a bath. When you focus on weight, the number on the scale or the size of your jeans then become the sole indicators of your “success.”
When those numbers aren’t where you want them to be, you might resort to unhealthy behaviors to get the number to budge. This takes time and energy away from truly health enhancing behaviors. We then lose sight of the things that matter - the signals that tell us how we actually feel in our body and the things that help us feel healthier, more at peace and at home in our body.
We aren’t suggesting you should necessarily love living in your body right this instant. When you learn to respect your body rather than view it as the enemy, you might begin to make decisions from a more compassionate place that is more impactful to overall health.
the weight neutral approach
This is shift in how health care practitioners approach care, though it is gaining momentum. Instead of using weight or the antiquated BMI as a measure of health, we utilize a holistic approach that looks at the person as a whole. When we completed our education and training to become RDs, we committed to doing no harm, including recommending weight loss.
For this reason, we take a weight neutral approach. This means the number on the scale doesn’t dictate our care plan or influence our recommendations. It is shown that weight stigma or bias is more likely to cause harm, resulting in poorer health outcomes as a product of being fat shamed, especially in a clinical setting. When fatphobia among health care providers is reflected on patients, those individuals are less likely to seek care and more likely to skip appointments.
5 steps towards a health at every size approach
1. reject the diet mentality
This might ring some bells if you are familiar with the Intuitive Eating principles. Acknowledge that diets are unsuccessful in the long run, as our weight is ultimately out of our control & that they hurt our physical and psychological health.
2. set realistic, non weight-oriented goals
Set goals that are beneficial for your health AND align with your values. Examples of this could be:
- When wanting to lower cholesterol - adding in more fibrous foods, incorporating joyful movement, finding ways to reduce stress levels.
- For new-onset Type 2 Diabetes - focus on balancing blood sugars through consistent intake throughout the day
3. adopt a self care routine
Engage in self care that focuses on your mental, emotional and spiritual health.
Have health goals be an accessory to your life that is enjoyable, not a punishment that ultimately sacrifices your health.
4. buy and wear clothes for your NOW body
Not a make-believe “future” body.
Wearing clothes that are comfortable and make you feel your best leaves you less vulnerable to the temptation to restrict or diet.
5. empower yourself
Learn something new that has nothing to do about how to change your body shape and size. Dive into architecture, literature, car racing, video games - whatever excites that true you!
If you want to learn more about non-diet resources, check out our favorites here.
how NourishRX can support you
At the end of the day, your weight is simply a number. A number that provides us with little valuable information (unless of course you are on a weight restoration protocol as part of your ED recovery!). It is as benign as your street address.
Nutrition and health is much more nuanced and complex than a simple calories in, calories out equation. Here at NourishRX, we believe that YOU are the expert of your own body, and we are the facilitators in helping that inner wisdom come to light. We care more about your relationship with food and your overall lifestyle than what you actually eat.
We utilize Health at Every Size ™ principles because we know that you can be healthy right NOW by adopting health-enhancing behaviors, not once you attain the illusive “x” weight on the scale. You value as a human is so much more than that.
There can be a lot of misinformation about HAES online - so make sure to drop us a line and see how we can best support you in enhancing your health without weight preoccupation.
Comments Off on What is Health At Every Size?