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Does body acceptance lead to healthy eating?
Posted on Sep 2nd 2006 2:33PM by Nicole Weston
A new study has tied body acceptance to healthy eating habits in women, based on surveys of college-age women. Healthy eating, within the context of the study, was equated with intuitive eating, meaning that the women who accepted their bodies looked to their body for cues about hunger and satiety, rather than to outside sources.
One problem with the study is that it clearly states that the women reported "receiving more positive messages from parents and others regarding their bodies," which seems to indicate that not all their cues were internal ones. The bigger problem is that it puts body acceptance first. If accepting your body automatically meant that you would follow a healthy diet, listening to "internal cues" about what you should and should not eat, than fewer people would be overweight and obese. The body does not tell people that they need to eat a super-sized double cheeseburger meal at a fast food restaurant, and a lot of the people eating those meals aren't too concerned about achieving acceptance of their bodies; they accept their bodies and are eating what they want to eat.
The reality is that those "cues" tell different people different things, and even the most accepting woman is going to get a "cue" telling her that she really wants a Snicker's bar, a creme brulee or other unhealthy food from time to time. Healthy eating is about choosing the foods that make your body - and you - feel good. You choose to eat healthy and accept the body that comes with that, whatever it may be.
