Americans are dieting at a higher rate than ever before. The diet industry is a 60 billion-dollar industry that has a 5% success rate. It’s true…95% of diets fail. Research shows that girls who diet frequently are 12 times more likely to binge as girls who don’t diet. 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. I so often see people that are totally confused about what to eat. We have lost our way. We have also lost sight of one of our basic human needs…the ability to feed ourselves based on what we desire, while honoring our hunger and fullness.
How do we begin to find our way out of these crazy diets and behaviors and stop the war with our bodies? We must reject the diet mentality and shift our thinking to honoring our body, our hunger, our fullness and our satisfaction; rather than the pursuit of an unrealistic societal ideal of thinness. A non-diet approach to health and wellness focuses on mindful and intuitive eating that helps support increased self-esteem and body acceptance. It is a philosophy that promotes the concept that “all foods fit” and that responding to your body’s cues for food and nourishment is a natural, internally based skill that all of us possess. Food is not good/bad, should/shouldn’t, legal/illegal; but rather food is meant to be tasted, enjoyed and seen as fuel for our bodies.
It is possible to reject the myths about diet, body size, body mass index and weight and learn how to eat in a way that promotes health and energy. People come in all shapes and sizes and each of us is responsible for taking care of our unique bodies. Your body will seek a natural and normal weight in response to physical body cues, food types, environment and lifestyle. A non-diet approach supports people in the pursuit of greater health and well-being.
If you listen to your body when it whispers, you don’t have to hear it when it screams.