Why are you choosing to be unhealthy?

You either make the effort to eat well or you don’t make the effort and you get a disease
 
I just heard a registered dietitian say those exact words on a big podcast
Not diary of a CEO they’re getting the month off
And it properly riled me up
 
It’s personal responsibility babe, that’s all
 
I also read an article earlier today aka I saw a TikTok
A woman was raging about how obesity is a choice
How we can’t compare it to anything that happens TO us
Because a person can always change how they eat and how they move
 
The woman was able bodied for one (at least, from what I could see but certainly not all disabilities are visible)
Didn’t have kids
And as much as I can’t judge someone based on appearance
Had access to the internet, a phone and the information about nutrition out there
 
I’ve no idea if she lived with mental illness
An eating disorder
An invisible disability
Or about her socioeconomic status
 
But you know what?
I can take a guess at some of these
I would guess (again, guess) that she had the privilege of good health
Socioeconomic status
A genetic predisposition to a resting level of hunger that didn’t predispose her to eating in a calorie surplus
A genetic predisposition where she responds to emotions not with food and instead with other forms of self-regulation
And hadn’t experienced the reality of millions of people throughout the world that don’t have these privileges or physiological occurrences 
 
I’m tired
Yes because of my pregnancy body is heavy and my hormones are raging and I’m constantly out of breath and feeling suffocated and hungry
But also because of these nasty little narratives big podcasts are pushing 
 
Good health is not simply a choice to have good health
 
Imagine I said to you that you choose to binge eat
You choose to be stuck in a yo-yo dieting cycle 
You choose to feel hungry all the time
You choose to feel pain every time you move your body
You choose to feel unsafe in your body every time you rest
You choose to feel your entire worth comes from how hard you push your body and how small you stay
 
Just try harder and be better and choose the green smoothie over the box of cereal babe – you know the cereal makes you binge so JUST DON’T CHOOSE IT
 
Honestly these people who should know better
Who do know better but also know that knowing worse makes them more money and gets them invited onto bigger podcasts
Can suck it
 
I want to remind you that amongst the biohacking personal responsibility just want it enough narrative
There is a large element of things outside of your control too
 
Which sounds extremely disempowering doesn’t it?
And probably the opposite of most of the fitness content you see online
Which is why people don’t say it to you 
If it’s all a choice and within your control then it’s all changeable
And often changeable when you pay these people enough money to tell you what to change
 
Much of it is changeable when you take action, but not all of it
 
Just take a look at this diagram that depicts the myriad contributors to energy balance
You know the concept
Calories in vs calories out
It’s really pretty simple 

All those little lines are factors contributing to why someone might eat the way they do
Or expend energy the way they do

Oh you can’t read it all? 
That’s because there are hundreds of potential influencers of obesity
Here’s a link you can zoom in on if you’d really like to see more
 
What’s so pervasive and worrying about these narratives too is that they are encouraging disordered relationships with food for many that listen
A new focus instead of calories
Let’s all become obsessed with keeping our blood sugar low
It’s much healthier than obsessing over calories 
 
It’s still preoccupation though
Over something that is physiologically irrelevant for the majority of people seeing the message
Therefore it’s a total waste of your time
A total waste of your brain space
A total waste of this one opportunity you have to live this one day
This one life
Where time is always running out
 
Consider:
What’s within my control when it comes to my health?
What’s outside of my control?
Where can I accept the things I can’t change, and instead focus on what I can?
Where am I wasting my precious energy when it comes to my health?
What could I do with that energy if it wasn’t so focused on these things that don’t matter?
 
And have a lovely weekend
I’m always here
Em