If you think that being thin is all that matters, consider that your health is not determined by how much or how little you weigh.
Getting skinny, burning fat, and losing weight are the purposes of eating right, exercise, and self-care. Although this seems to be the major media message blaring out, skinny doesn’t equal healthy. You can lose weight and get thin by starving yourself, purging, taking pills, smoking, doing drugs, crash dieting, or experiencing a life-threatening disease. It may mean you look thin, but it doesn’t make you healthy. Chemical substances can make you thin, and some people can stay skinny with a poor diet and no exercise. Eating nutrient-depleted, processed foods may cause you to lose weight, but it is not a recipe for building a healthy body because healthy and skinny do not equal the same thing.
The goal of this book is to help you get healthy, to feel good, and to have a good quality of life where you can do the things you want to do and enjoy your life. A lot of the time, healthy people are thin because they are active, eat well, and take good care of themselves. But don’t confuse getting skinny with getting healthy. Risks of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity-related health problems do tend to decrease with weight loss, but skinny people can still be unhealthy. Thinking that getting healthy is synonymous with being thin and losing weight is like thinking that money will make you happy. They may go together, but it is not guaranteed.
“It’s important to be healthy on the inside and on the outside. Some people can eat all kinds of junk and still stay slim, but that doesn’t mean they’re healthy.”
– Karen Ansel, spokeswoman from American Dietetic Association, Shape Magazine
Fresh Ideas to Extend Your Expiration Date
- The means are as important as the end. If your goal is to look good, lose weight, and get great abs, that is fine, but why not do it the healthy way?
- Make a list of your health goals—what you want for now, six months from now, and one year from now. Getting skinny can be one of them, but you can be skinny and still feel bad. How do you want to feel and what do you want to be able to do when you feel good?
- Realize that feeling good has less to do with how you look and more to do with how healthy your self-image is. Feeling good about yourself is attractive, no matter your size.
Learn More
America the Beautiful 2, a documentary by Darryl Roberts, is an insightful look into the diet industry and whether it is possible to be healthy at a variety of weights.
