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As Paul at Big Fat Blog aptly notes, "[The term] health and wellness' has become a euphemism for 'not fat.'" I personally encountered this mentality a lot during my eating disorder. People habitually complimented me on my weight loss and the improved health they assumed it brought, when in reality, I had never before been so sick and unhealthy. The often unsolicited comments annoyed me in that I felt weight was the only redeeming thing people saw about me, but they also spurred me on and validated all the dangerous sacrifices I was making in the pursuit of thinness.
Health has become the new buzzword in this post-9/11 culture, thus granting those who discriminate on the basis of weight an altruistic justification for actions that would, when directed towards women or minorities, be considered sexism or racism. But if our focus were truly on health, we'd have more stories celebrating people like Mo of Big Fat Deal, who was able to dramatically lower her cholesterol without losing a pound. We'd stop pushing dieting and start promoting HAES. We'd encourage people to develop healthy relationships with food and their bodies...We’d embrace a culture that recognizes and celebrates body size diversity as it purports to value racial diversity. We'd make healthy foods available and affordable to people of all socio-economic class levels. The fact that we do none of the above and instead persist in measuring 'health' against a 'badly flawed' litmus only indicates just what our priorities are and aren’t. And health? Doesn’t seem to be among them.
--Rachel (http://the-f-word.org/blog/)
Health has become the new buzzword in this post-9/11 culture, thus granting those who discriminate on the basis of weight an altruistic justification for actions that would, when directed towards women or minorities, be considered sexism or racism. But if our focus were truly on health, we'd have more stories celebrating people like Mo of Big Fat Deal, who was able to dramatically lower her cholesterol without losing a pound. We'd stop pushing dieting and start promoting HAES. We'd encourage people to develop healthy relationships with food and their bodies...We’d embrace a culture that recognizes and celebrates body size diversity as it purports to value racial diversity. We'd make healthy foods available and affordable to people of all socio-economic class levels. The fact that we do none of the above and instead persist in measuring 'health' against a 'badly flawed' litmus only indicates just what our priorities are and aren’t. And health? Doesn’t seem to be among them.
--Rachel (http://the-f-word.org/blog/)
