According to the old, musty “stages of change” theory thingy, some people are at a point where just *thinking* about exercise is basically a huge effort. Other people are at different points.

I was so disordered in my exercise habits while dieting that I have had to *really* back off from doing any kind of intentional exercise (meaning, yes, I still live a life where I walk as my primary mode of transport, but that’s not because I’m trying to get “exercise.”) Because, frankly, it scares me. I’m scared that I could go down that path again, and hurt myself by doing too much, just like I did before.

At this point, thinking about it, and maybe trying a few things here and there, is where I’m at. Where you’re at, and where everyone else is at, is a totally individual thing.

I still don’t think it’s helpful at all to think of oneself as “failing” at HAES, if you believe in the ideas behind it.

Not everyone likes exercise. Not everyone likes vegetables, either. That doesn’t mean you can’t be doing good things for yourself and your health, anyway.

It is true, though, that, at a certain point of poverty or lack of access, all the tricks and strategies in the world won’t help a person to practice HAES. There has to be a basic subsistence level of access/finances going on. And I don’t want to minimize how shitty it is to be truly impoverished.

But I think that, if smart people like us put our heads together, maybe we could come up with, like, a guerilla guide to HAES for poor people. Or something.

There’s something that’s been bugging me about the whole HAES debate. People don’t seem to understand that HAES is not a new set of rules that we all have to follow, but rather a belief (people can be healthy at any size) and a set of guidelines that are supposed to help those who want to pursue health. If circumstances prevent you from following those guidelines, that obviously sucks, but nobody’s going to berate you for being unable to do something. I can’t exercise, I can’t afford good food, in fact I can’t do anything to get better at all at the moment – so what?! That doesn’t mean I’m excluded from HAES, all it means is that right now, circumstances are preventing me from pursuing health. I still want to, I just can’t. That’s not the fault of those who are giving advice on how to pursue health! I will appreciate it once I can do so again.

Besides, all of the beliefs stated above still apply to me. I believe in size diversity, I’m not trying to lose weight and I am interested in pursuing health. So instead of getting angry with those who are writing about things I can’t do, I’m angry at the fact that I can’t.

I cannot actively follow HAES at the moment and it freaking SUCKS BALLS. So there. I don’t think anyone is going to call me a bad person for it or exclude me from the community!

(Why can’t we all just get along.)

Anyway, let the geeking continue. Don’t mind me :)

What I need to do is get my hands on a copy of “Great Shape” and some other size-friendly exercise materials and really give it some good thought.

At any rate, I want to make it explicitly clear that “you fail at HAES” is never a good answer to anything. Because, really, that kind of superior, top-down, judgmental mentality is exactly what HAES isn’t about. At all. And I feel really frustrated when people insinuate that anyone who is making an effort can “fail” at HAES. Because I really don’t think you can, if you’re making an effort in good faith. At the risk of sounding cheesy, it’s a process. It’s not something that’s ever a done deal that you can then get a failing or passing mark at. And just because other people might be at different points of the process doesn’t mean anyone’s doing “better” or “worse.” I have absolutely no use for those kinds of judgments. Because they don’t help people — they actively discourage people from even trying.

Also, if HAES simply isn’t your thing, you’re not a health conscious person, you don’t have health concerns, or it just isn’t (or can’t be) a priority in your life, then that is totally legit. No one should ever feel obligated to be a part of something they simply have no use for.

The thing is, for someone profoundly anorexic, who is at a severely low weight, the low weight itself (from starvation) can actually cause the brain to not function properly, which precludes recovery. And I don’t mean it precludes *full* recovery — a dangerously low weight precludes even the beginnings of recovery, because the person simply is not functioning at a capacity that can full benefit from therapy, or that can even make simple decisions about their food.

As far as I know, the same brain changes don’t occur for someone who has gained lots of weight from, say, BED. It seems intuitively like it should work both ways, but as far as I know, it does not. People who gain extreme amounts of weight might have their mobility impacted, which, of course, can interfere with recovery, but that’s different from having a cognitive impairment that disallows you from even being able to consent fully to participate in recovery.

But I agree that weight changes in either direction are, essentially, incidental to recovery (except in cases of extreme self-starvation, for the reason I’ve mentioned) and that weight is more a symptom of the eating disorder than the problem itself.

Because even people recovering from anorexia nervosa who gain enough weight back to be considered medically stable, and to have their cognitive function restored, are still in need of full recovery.

Weight stabilization alone doesn’t confer healing, in either case.

This doesn’t work if you have aspirations to be really, really good at a particular sport. I would like to be as good as some people at some activities, but this is not a realistic goal. Even if I decided to make a dedicated attempt at it, it would take months and months if not years, and that wouldn’t mean I was unhealthy until I achieved it but healthy afterward. My friend who played soccer in high school says that training for soccer destroyed her knees, and no one can maintain peak athletic condition all the time, so I don’t think athletic goals are a good measuring stick.

While I’m contradicting people, I think that if weight gain to recover from an eating disorder can be part of HAES, weight loss to recover from a different eating disorder should fall under the same category. I would say both weight changes are incidental to recovery from the eating disorder, but I’m just theorizing in my head.

And I absolutely don’t think people in similar situations need to feel guilty about not being able to take that “personal journey” toward HAES. It’s bullshit that any of us have to live like this, and it is something I would like to help change.

You’re right that health is primarily a matter of economic access. It is the most important social determinant of health.

Systemic changes need to take place to get food to people in poor neighbourhoods, and to make it safe for people to do basic stuff outside. Absolutely.

Something you might find interesting: Ellyn Satter, the dietitian to whom much of HAES is conceptually indebted, has recently created a hierarchy of food needs based on Maslow’s hierachy of needs. The very foundational part of that hierarchy is access to food. Without that, nothing else can happen.

I’m really glad you took me to task, and I hope you’ll stick around and talk about this in the future. We need your perspective.

Except that, you’re missing the fact that may people live places where it’s not safe to walk outside without being shot at, mugged, raped, or killed. If enjoyable movement is a part of HAES, and there’s no place at all for one to move, then HAES doesn’t embrace every social class. If HAES is about eating what your body needs, and you cannot get access to a grocery store, or even the money/food stamps to purchase food, HAES doesn’t include you. Health is primarily a matter of economic access, and HAES proponents are falling down by not acknowledging this, loudly, publicly, and legislatively.

HAES proponents make mealy mouthed statements about poverty, and then brush real poor people under the rug. It isn’t enough to personally practice HAES, it means a lot more when you make it possible for more people to be able to practice HAES.

I say this as someone who has had to steal food in order to feed my household. I say this as someone who has to wait until her husband has a day off of work to get a two hour walk in once a week. HAES proponents haven’t done one thing to bring a grocery store to my neighborhood, they haven’t done one thing to bring safe (and free) exercise space to my town. They’ve done a lot of talking about their “personal journey”, some of them have even wrote nice books, but it’s all middle class smoke and mirrors as far as I’m concerned. Good on you if you’re healthy, but please don’t pretend that it’s not because you don’t have class advantages.

Quoted for truth, Tiana. I’m with you. I think there’s too much of an underlying belief in our culture that pain or discomfort is inherently valuable. And, well, I just kind of don’t think it is, for its own sake. For things that are totally necessary — yes, of course. But for the rest of life? Forcing yourself through every single thing you do just doesn’t seem like a wonderful way to enhance quality of life.

I really think self-respect means giving up on self-abuse and self-bullying. There are kinder, more compassionate ways to get the same things done, to get the same results.

That makes so much sense, I’m amazed it never occured to me before. It is a topic I think about a lot – why do people do what they do? I believe that we should only force ourselves to do things we don’t enjoy if it’s absolutely necessary, like swallowing bitter pills, and there must be a way to restructure the rest of life in a way that enables us to enjoy everything else.

One of those points is, when intrinsic motivation efforts (like “learning for the joy of it” or intuitive eating) are applied for the purpose of achieving extrinsic goals (like “getting good grades” or weight loss), it pretty much undermines the whole thing. Becase the intrinsic motivators are supposed to be ends in themselves — you know?

Anyway, thank you, and good luck with your efforts!

I’m still investigating what I eat, how I eat and things, and I hope I don’t fall into a similar mistake again.

Thank you