What’s Your Motivation for Healthy Holiday Eating?
value wellness over your weight
Last night when I sat down to write up some healthy holiday eating tips, I decided to Google the topic to see what people are telling you. I knew that I wouldn’t agree with most “healthy” eating advice, since every person has a different definition of “healthy” and a lot of what’s marketed to you as “healthy” isn’t healthy at all. The real story was that sometimes I like to junk online before I start a post, so it was an easy excuse to do some clickity click click before making myself get to work.
What I found made me angry.
Real Simple’s “9 Healthy Holiday-Eating Strategies” showed up fourth in line when I Googled “healthy holiday eating tips”. What appeared to be an article about healthy eating was really an article about staying skinny during a “risky eating period”. It should have been titled, “9 Tips to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain”.
This article told me that I’m supposed to be writing down every single thing I eat, weighing myself every day, and trying on my skinniest pair of jeans once a week. Because that’s what Christmas food is about…depriving yourself in the name of skinny jeans.
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I want you to eat healthy over the holidays. I really do want you to eat as healthy as possible, and I’m OK with a splurge as long as it won’t ruin your health. What I don’t want you to do is to shame yourself into healthy eating, which is what this article is telling you to do, all for the sake of a better body image.
Check out the graphic above. It’s a collection of words that jumped out to me in Real Simple’s nine tips. Yes, they used every single one of these words to encourage you to eat healthy. Where’s their consideration for emotional well-being?
While it’s true that eating healthy may make you skinnier, eating to avoid weight gain is not equatable with healthy eating. They are two different things. Why can’t we eat healthy over the holidays for the sake of wellness? Why can’t we eat healthy because we love our bodies and we want to bless them with good, nutritious food? Why can’t we eat well because we want to feel well?
What’s your motivation for eating healthy over the holidays?
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Beth
December 9th, 2013 at 2:08 pm
Great response to the so-called article on healthy holiday eating, Archer. especially your closing remarks, why not eat healthy for wellness sake, not merely to fit into skinny jeans. the attitudes and mindsets that so often permeate this topic are entirely lacking in good judgement. appreciate your voice of reason, thanks! Wellness to all of you from all of us!
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