Take Inventory of Societal Attitudes and Your Eating Style.
By Kathleen Fuller, Ph.D.
The path and the process when healing eating issues and weight issues involve many convoluted and confusing choices. Your healing journey is unique, but certain behavioral similarities are fundamental at the start for nearly everyone who is affected.
First point you should know is that the sociocultural roots of eating issues and weight issues are hidden deep in plain view. We can look for them in the silent and generally accepted expectations we hold about the world in which we live. These commonly held expectations are primarily formed by the combined attitudes of people who comprise this culture and society.
Ask yourself: what can you do to uncover these deeply entrenched sociocultural systems that each of us has? How about taking stock of the conscious and unconscious influence these expectations hold on us individually? That could be your first step to freeing yourself from them forever, and living the principles of healthy eating.
You can find out for yourself how immune or immersed you are in these biases, by completing the Health Quiz for Eating Habits and Weight Issues by answering “yes” or “no” to the following questions. The totaled answers may surprise you, but they can also act as a wake-up call or a catalyst.
Health Quiz for Eating Habits and Weight Issues
Have you ever:
(1) Thought constantly about food or talked incessantly about dieting?
(2) Felt overwhelming emotional stress?
(3) Felt depressed with low self-esteem over several weeks, months, or longer?
(4) Felt out of control?
(5) Believed that all it takes to conquer weight issues and eating issues is willpower?
(6) Tried to restrict your diet to lose weight gained from overeating?
(7) Felt guilty or ashamed about your eating habits or patterns?
(8) Started eating, then found you couldn’t stop?
(9) Eaten so much at night that you could hardly get up in the morning?
(10) Experienced relationship or family problems because of overeating, dieting, bingeing or purging?
(11) Held high expectations or standards for yourself and others?
(12) Told family what you think they want to hear about your eating habits, rather than the truth?
(13) Maintained a lower or higher than average weight?
(14) Gorged yourself, then used exercise, vomiting, or laxatives so you wouldn’t gain weight?
(15) Placed overt importance on your physical appearance?
(16) Admitted physical appearance is of ultimate importance to your family and/or yourself?
(17) Experienced swollen glands from vomiting?
(18) Experienced menstrual irregularities?
(19) Felt compelled to monitor what you or your children ate?
If you answered yes for one to five of these questions, then you’re reading this at a good time.
If you answered yes to five to ten questions, it’s a wake-up call. Pay attention to the warning signs of weight issues and eating issues now and begin seeking help. Implementing a commitment is a good first step.
If you answered yes to ten to fifteen questions, consider employing the help of a qualified therapist as you use other tips and tools, for the sake of your health and well-being.
If you or someone you know can answer yes to fifteen or more questions, it’s time for immediate action or a personal intervention. Healthy eating has been absent and your life or the life of someone you love may be at stake.
First Steps to Healing
You’ve already done the first step by completing the Health Quiz for Eating Habits and Weight Issues. This showed you where you are in relation to societal attitudes about food and weight. The next step is equally important. Make a commitment to become sincerely involved in techniques, exercises, and the process of actually living the principles of healthy eating. After you make your commitment to “walk the walk,” your life will change forever.
Free biweekly newsletters loaded with tips and tools for eating issues and weight issues are at my website. You’ll gain understanding on how to establish healthy eating in the easiest way possible. Go and sign up now and receive free excerpts from my book Not Your Mother’s Diet.
Barefoot Body Paradise Everyday
Dr. Kathleen Fuller
www.notyourmothersdiet.com
[email protected]
© 2007 Kathleen Fuller, All Rights Reserved.