Bon Anniversaire INDD!

 

I love how the birth of International No Diet Day began “from a picnic in Mary’s living room” in the early ’90’s and fertilized it’s magnitude world-wide.  Ms Evans-Young is herself a recovered anorexic and wrote the book Diet Breaking: Having it all Without Having to Diet and it couldn’t be a better time than now to let the message sink in– deep and with reflection.

Largesse gives the background on the term: size esteem  which was initially coined by Richard Stimson, husband to a contributing director/writer at the site, Karen Stimson who explains it perfectly:

– Feeling acceptance of, respect for, and pride in one’s body, whatever its size or shape –

But I like this analogy even more highlighted by Cheri Erdman EdD who wrote the book Live Large! and thought about it as a simple yet poignant equation:  Size Acceptance + Self Esteem = SIZE ESTEEM

Either way you think about it, the insanity of dieting, wanting to force our bodies to be a size/shape it was not genetically determined to be– and thankfully so for the beautiful variety of shapes, sizes, colors, we all add to the collage of life, is quite dubious. 

It’s even further magnified when you or a loved one suffer from an eating disorder and are trying to regain your health and follow through with recovery and maintaining wellness in a seemingly endless fat-phobic, diet-crazed, fashion-consumed environment.  Our daughter at times can take on this incessant self-doubt and accusational inquiries about why she has to eat what she has to when others, her classmates, etc. eat less than she does and are constantly discussing “fat” laden topics— it’s enough to make anyone go a little bonkers.  Advertisers, marketing, the health ins field, even health care (hey, let’s face it– those mega-million dollar hospitals that now look more like shopping malls want  to treat the ill business) and the all time winner: the diet industry.

Stuffed and Starved is a title from researcher Raj Patel more about food prices, the global-glut, etc. but I had to think about this a little bit more this morning how it really ties into so many other layers of Life– and will be worth dissecting and playing off the similar as well as dissimilar dualities we can only pretend don’t exist, or just think is someone else’s “problem” to fix, get over, medicate– like the cliched remark I’ve heard countless times since our daughter was diagnosed with anorexia- “why doesn’t she just eat?!”, then the instant turn against parents when our children don’t eat = it’s your fault, you did something “wrong”, etc.

Yes, INDD is a day we find relative and meaningful in our family.  And with the weather reaching low 70’s, sun shining– I think a picnic is just what we’ll do to celebrate this day!

-shanti