The word healthy has been distorted to reflect more of a moral compass than a state of well-being. Learn to redefine what health means to you.
As a society we are moving further and further away from an understanding of what true health is. The word healthy has been overused and misused in media and in society so much that the word has started to resemble little to nothing more than a measure of virtue. We’re either being good or bad based on what good or bad foods we eat, and our bodies are either healthy or unhealthy based on how they look. The word “healthy” has become an oversimplified term to place foods, recipes, activities and our bodies into moralized “good” or “bad” categories. There is so much more to health than the good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, “healthy” vs. “unhealthy” criteria.
The eat this, not that; do this, not that; relentless scrutiny of the shape of our bodies and the increasing bombardment and over-simplification of what “health” is and looks like has only intensified in the age of social media and the popularity of pseudo-nutrition and self-proclaimed health and wellness gurus. We are in a time where we have become more and more hyper-connected to others in our social media world than ever before. Social media is filled with accounts that feature glorified pictures of perfection when it comes to “health” and idealized nutrition or fitness goals and promises that can be unrealistic, negative, extreme, potentially harmful and a lot of time not healthy at all. It also gives anyone a platform to manufacture a perfect life or highly filtered and photo-shopped images. By scrolling through countless “normalized” unrealistic images and promises of health and happiness we begin to see ourselves in other people, celebrities, influencers, nutrition and fitness “experts” and we lose the connection to our own selves, our own needs and our own relationships with our bodies and food. And as a result, we put more trust into our Instagram accounts than we do our own bodies.
The challenge of pursuing health has only become more complicated because of how the diet industry has changed up their marketing strategies. What once was marketed as ‘diets’ is now being put out into world in the form of more creative and socially acceptable ‘wellness’ messaging such as lifestyle changes, cleanses, #fitspo, self-care, superfoods, and clean eating. Even Whole 30 is masking their diet rules with a more appealing phrase “food freedom forever,” which could not be more contradictory! These types of marketing messages have made it incredibly easy to get swept up in the hype of the trends and the belief that they’re inspiring, helpful and motivating. The problem is these external rules, calorie trackers, restrictions, meal plans, exercise regimens and so forth sever the connection between our minds and our bodies. They don’t consider personal relationships with our bodies, our experiences with food, satisfaction levels, individual emotions, and physical hunger and fullness signals. Yet we’re led to believe we need these external guides to show us the way because somewhere along the road we’ve been taught we can not and should not trust our own bodies.
What health is not (to name a few):
- Following rules
- Having willpower to eat healthy
- Feelings of suffering to be healthy
- Only eating healthy foods
- Ignoring hunger
- Only making recipes that are titled or deemed “healthy”
- Fighting cravings
- Restricting foods you love
- Placing the focus on weight loss
- Eating for perfect nutrition or perfect health
- Feeling guilty for eating food
- Only enjoying cheat foods on cheat days
- Exercising so you can eat tacos and drink margaritas over the weekend
- One specific look
- Having the perfect body
So, between the lost mind-body connection when micromanaging our movement choices and food choices through avoidance and restriction in an effort to pursue “perfect health” or to manipulate the shape of our bodies and the increasing connection to our share and compare digital world, true health is getting lost. Real health starts with you and your own unique body. Finding authentic health is not just eating “healthy” foods all the time or making sure you exercise X amount of days or about the way your body looks. It’s about what you do over time and finding balance in your eating, in your mind, in your activities and in all areas of wellness and life that enhance your entire well-being and make you feed good, well and whole. And what health looks like for one person will not look the same for another. There is not one magic bullet or one plan to achieve an automatic perfect picture of health. If that were the case, wouldn’t we live in a world where we all fit into the “healthy” category by now? We are all our own unique and complex individuals with our own changing tastes, needs, preferences, experiences, feelings, thoughts and emotions, which makes health a personal definition. And our health is so much than meeting the black and white criteria that health has been reduced to.