His findings consistently show that the people who live longer are physically active, independent of body size. His decades of research on tens of thousands of individuals consistently produce data confirming that people with large bodies who exercise on a regular basis live longer than thin people who don’t.

If you find yourself having resistance to the information you read about HAES, please try to keep an open mind and remember that current approaches to weight and health in this country have not been successful in making our population thinner or healthier in the long term. The quick fixes promised by weight loss programs, TV shows, pharmaceutical c

perspective on women’s struggles with food and the quest for thinness. I became angry at the societal messages that aggressively promoted a single standard of beauty—a standard that had caused me to spend most of my life seeing ugliness in myself and believing my body wasn’t good enough the way it was.

Staying with self-love keeps you from withdrawing your love from your partner. You don’t need to prove they are wrong in order to feel good about yourself.

The Body Positive is an alternative community where the pursuit of self-love over self-criticism is the norm. For many, this truly is a radical idea.

To become your own expert, it is critical to examine the messages you’ve received—and continue to receive—throughout your life about health, weight, food, and exercise (also beauty, but we’ll get to that in a later chapter). You’ll want to pay attention not only to what you’ve been told by the media and medical professionals, but also by your famil

Your goal with intuitive eating is to have as many nourishing and satisfying experiences as possible.

Learning what your body needs for nourishment as well as pleasure means paying attention to how you feel after eating a meal. This is what making food decisions by trial and error is all about.

•Without judgment, think about why you chose the food on your plate. What went into your decision-making process? Do you like your decisions? Did you forget something? Is there a food on your plate that you now don’t want to eat? Take time to get it right—remove what you don’t want and go back for anything you do. •Now, look over your plate and cho