Eating Disorders

Myth: Thinness leads to happiness and success

April 15, 2016

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A Certified Eating Disorders Registered Dietitian (CEDRD) with a master's degree in dietetics & nutrition. My passion is helping you find peace with food - and within yourself.

Meet Katy

This is simply not true.  Thinness is not the utopia it is made out to be.  

Believing that getting/being/staying thin is going to make you happy and/or successful is a dangerous assumption.  Because now you have got all your eggs in one basket – the basket of thinness.

The problem is that the basket is like a unicorn.  It doesn't actually exist.  You are sticking your eggs into an invisible basket and they are landing on the floor in a pile of broken mess.  

The pursuit of thinness is endless for most people.  Even those few who achieve it don't feel like they have achieved enough.  I have worked with individuals so thin they were dying and had to be tube fed, and they didn't feel thin (and certainly weren't happy).  And for those who don't achieve thinness, they probably never will.  Because the body doesn't want to maintain a weight that conforms to the thin ideal.  It isn't optimal for survival.  We need "meat on our bones" – and that meat includes fat.  (*sound of bubble bursting*).  Sorry, but it's true.  

Letting go of believing this myth that thinness => happiness and success is scary.  Because once you let go you have to accept that maybe thinness isn't all it's cracked up to be; and maybe all of the time, energy and effort you have put in to chasing thinness wasn't worth it.  You might also have to accept that the pursuit of happiness itself is a trap.

 

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