While browsing the forums over at Big Fat Blog (BFB), I came across an interesting movement called health at every size (or HAES).

The basic principles of HAES are:

1. Accepting and respecting the diversity of body shapes and sizes
2. Recognizing that health and well-being are multi-dimensional and that they include physical, social, spiritual, occupational, emotional, and intellectual aspects
3. Promoting all aspects of health and well-being for people of all sizes
4. Promoting eating in a manner which balances individual nutritional needs, hunger, satiety, appetite, and pleasure
5. Promoting individually appropriate, enjoyable, life-enhancing physical activity, rather than exercise that is focused on a goal of weight loss

I like it!

There’s a HAES journal (check out the free article by Paul Campos of The Obesity Myth) and a HAES blog, which is related to a HAES radio program (which is apparently available on the Internet).

From the HAES blog, I also learned more about the concept of healthism, something that the folks on BFB are very sensitive about. Healthism is:

a moralistic attitude in which those who are “healthy” or considered to be engaging in “healthy behaviors” are considered “good” and those who are “unhealthy” or considered to be engaging in “unhealthy behaviors” are scorned. (Health At Every Size — the radio show and the movement at large — does not support or promote healthism. Everyone is worthy and deserving of respect regardless of size or personal health status, or whether they’re eating “healthily” and getting regular exercise or not!)

On the one hand, I certainly agree with the idea that everyone is worth and deserving of respect (I’m a UU, and the “inherent worth and dignity of every person” is our first principle).

And yet…I must admit I struggle with the implied comparison with other isms. Of course, no one should be scorned for eating a Twinkie if they don’t look like Heidi Klum. But does that mean that any discussion of health in a fat acceptance context is healthism? I guess the answer is “it depends” on whether a “moral attitude” is present.

It’s a challenging concept. I absolutely agree with the idea that fat is not the villain. Unfortunately, I do think that lifestyle can be. And while I am fully supportive of the idea that diets and weight loss surgery are bad, I don’t think that that means that we can let people completely off the hook for their choices. Honestly, I don’t think we’re that far off from really understanding the role that diet choices (particularly refined flour and sugar) play in our health. And when we do, will eating these foods be like smoking, in which case some level of social stigma will be attached? Or will it be more like riding a bike without a helmet? Just one of those risky behaviors that some shake their head at, but which others support as freedom of choice?

Anyways, I really like the concept of health at every size. I probably like it because it’s a compromise…we stop requiring people to meet some arbitrary, unattainable size, yet we don’t forget that health is important too.

Update, 3/10: Here are some other great HAES resources:

• Healthy Weight Network (especially the resources page)
• Weight Realities Division – Resource List from the Society for Nutrition Education