What does healthy 'look' like?
If you look at someone and think to yourself, they look like someone who is healthy, do you really mean healthy? Or do you mean thin?
So many interesting things come up for me when I think about this... I’m realising how often in my life people have described me as healthy because I'm privileged enough to live in a thin body.
The assumption that I look after myself or I am incredibly healthy just because of the way I look is pretty dangerous, especially because for me - this just wasn’t the reality a few years ago.
I think we’ve become so consumed by fitting an “ideal” that we’ve lost the real markers of health. I’ve seen so many dangerous comments from fit pros over the past few days - highlighting that being “in shape” is an ideal we all should strive for.
Is it? What if that shape for us comes at a cost of obsessive exercise and food habits, a restrictive lifestyle, stress, sleep disruption, the eradication of our menstrual cycle or severe anxiety? Would we still be healthy just because we have visible muscle definition?
So the next time you are describing someone as “fit and healthy” I want you to check in with yourself - do you really know that to be true? Or have you made an assumption based on their size and body shape... And the next time you are holding yourself to an unrealistic standard because the media and society have fed you this idea that being a certain size will make you healthy and or happy - check yourself - is that really what’s right for your life, your body or your mental health?
Health is so much more than a size ❤️