So what exactly is Intuitive Eating (IE) and Health at Every Size (HAES). Let’s start with IE. Intuitive eating is an approach to eating like no diet you’ve ever seen before. This is because it is not a diet at all — its a mindset. It is comprised of 10 key principles that can guide you through your physical and mental needs around food. Here they are listed below:

1. Reject the Diet Mentality

2. Honor Your Hunger

3. Make Peace with Food

4. Challenge the Food Police

5. Discover the Satisfaction Factor

6. Feel Your Fullness

7. Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness

8. Respect Your Body

9. Movement—Feel the Difference

10. Honor Your Health—Gentle Nutrition

Intuitive Eating states that food is neither “good“ nor “bad,“ but rather that FOOD is just FOOD. It’s okay for our food to be connected to an emotional response, whether that be out of celebration or stress, while also acknowledging that food has its limitations in managing our emotional health. IE shows us that it’s okay for us to eat to satiety, just as much as its okay to stop eating when we’re full.

This isn’t to say that basic nutrition can be thrown out the door. We all still need a balanced diet consisting of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats coming from a variety of different foods to ensure we are receiving all the essential nutrients that our bodies need to function and thrive. IE does not promote eating certain foods while eliminating others for the sake of “eating whatever I want, when I want.” In fact, too much of ANY food, whether it be kale or cupcakes, can cause a negative health impact including hormonal/biochemical imbalance, low energy, inflammation, & gastrointestinal issues.

Instead, IE works to help us feel our best by allowing us make decisions around food based on our physical and emotional needs. IE can teach us how to respect our bodies’ instincts and internal wisdom to navigate eating. It also gives us the freedom to enjoy food for the sake of pleasure, social experience, and emotional comfort. Rather than sticking to restrictive food rules for the sake of weight loss, IE allows us to build a better relationship around food such that we’ll be able to recognize when we actually want to eat, and when we don’t!

This naturally brings me to my next topic of discussion: Health at Every Size. As stated in it’s name, health can ultimately exist in any body size. This is certainly a revolutionary concept given that we are constantly force fed that only people in thinner bodies can achieve what we perceive as health. However, what exactly is health? If someone asked you on the spot, would you be able to define what being healthy actually means? Dictionary.com defines health as “the general condition of the body or mind with reference to soundness and vigor.“ Being healthy is defined as “the general condition of the body or mind with reference to soundness and vigor,“ “prosperous or sound.“ Diet culture, on the other hand, defines health as the absence of body fat, and have the ability to fit into single-digit pant sizes. But there is so much more to health than numbers on a scale.

HAES states that health exists on a “continuum that varies with time and circumstance for each individual.” For example, someone living with, say, type 2 diabetes and a BMI of 35 has the capacity to live their live with “soundness and vigor” just as much as someone who has a BMI of 20 may be struggling with body dysmorphia and chronic anemia. But to diet culture, the person with a BMI of 35 would be seen as the one with a problem, regardless of our genetic, environmental, and socioeconomic dispositions. Diet culture continues to judge topically, and fails to realize that all humans are susceptible to disease independent of their weight or body fat percentage. Instead, HAES tries to demonstrate that we all have the potential to achieve health through balance and gentle treatment of our bodies. Therefore people in larger bodies should therefore be treated on an equal playing field as those living in smaller bodies. The principles of HAES are as follows:

1. Weight Inclusivity: Accept and respect the inherent diversity of body shapes and sizes and reject the idealizing or pathologizing of specific weights.

2. Health Enhancement: Support health policies that improve and equalize access to information and services, and personal practices that improve human well-being, including attention to individual physical, economic, social, spiritual, emotional, and other needs.

3. Respectful Care: Acknowledge our biases, and work to end weight discrimination, weight stigma, and weight bias. Provide information and services from an understanding that socio-economic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, and other identities impact weight stigma, and support environments that address these inequities.

4. Eating for Well-being: Promote flexible, individualized eating based on hunger, satiety, nutritional needs, and pleasure, rather than any externally regulated eating plan focused on weight control. (I.e. Intuitive Eating!)

5. Life-Enhancing Movement: Support physical activities that allow people of all sizes, abilities, and interests to engage in enjoyable movement, to the degree that they choose

Again, similar to intuitive eating, health at every size does not reject lifestyle principles for well being and longevity, but rather recognizes that these principles can be exhibited in ALL people independent of their shape and size. Therefore, as health care practitioners, scientists, influencers, coworkers, and friends, we shouldn’t make judgments & presumptions on someone’s health status based on their weight. By removing this stigma, we can improve the overall quality of care and health outcomes of individuals living in larger bodies. Because, let’s face it: telling someone to lose weight as a means to prevent chronic disease simply DOES NOT WORK, especially when we take into account how damaging dieting can be to our long term health.

Shifting your mindset to align with these philosophies doesn’t happen over night, but taking small steps to realizing a life of less stress and anxiety towards food and body acceptance is not only freeing but actually beneficial for public health. Although we’re only scratching the surface into these topics, I hope this helps you understand a little bit as to what IE and HAES are, and why they are so important. I’ve referenced some additional reading on these topics at the end of this post, mainly summarizing what I’ve delved into, but if you’d like me to explore more on these topics, leave me a comment down below!

Additional Reading

1. 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://www.intuitiveeating.org/10-principles-of-intuitive-eating/

2. Health at Every Size Principles. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://www.sizediversityandhealth.org/content.asp?id=76

3. Phelan, S M et al. “Impact of weight bias and stigma on quality of care and outcomes for patients with obesity.” Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity vol. 16,4 (2015): 319-26. doi:10.1111/obr.12266