Achieving and Maintaining a Weight You’re Happy With...
The Voice Of Reason

Much has been written about the obesity epidemic in the western world. Yet we still blithely tolerate and even support media which insist that we should aspire to be as thin as rakes just like the skeletal models that grace our magazines, stages, cinema and TV screens. The impossible to achieve size 0 – impossible, that is, unless we literally starve ourselves and wreck our health in the process.
No matter how hard campaigners work to try and get more designers and brand owners to use normal healthy models we still see gawky and seriously underweight teenagers used to promote products everywhere. Hollywood continues to insist that actresses conform to the size 0 requirement and so it goes on. These are the images and the icons that influence us and generations of young people, whether we like it or not.
Modern day pressures are enough to cause even the youngest of children to become anorexic or bulimic and to deny themselves the chance of lifelong good health. Eight and nine year olds obsessed with their bodies, starving themselves to the point where their hair and their teeth fall out, this is a reality today. That is sick. The overweight – and in many cases completely normal weight children – are ostracised by their peers, picked on by the nanny state and made to feel utterly worthless. This too is unacceptable. The naturally thin are few and far between and many who are of slight build long to put on weight and live in envy of their curvier or better muscled counterparts. When it comes to achieving the ultimate media representation of the perfect body image none of us can win so rather than try shouldn’t we instead simply focus on being as healthy as we can and comfortable with who we are.
What we seem to have lost sight of is that each of us is different and therefore not every solution or ideal offered up by the media or the slimming “industry” is going to work for all of us. We are of differing builds, we have different metabolisms, we are individuals and nothing can change that. However we are not all as healthy as we might be and for some us that is wholly attributable to living on a poor diet and that we can do something about. Members of the medical profession are rightly warning of the consequences if our nation continues to gorge itself on junk food and bringing up children on a diet dominated by junk food. We can all eat a better diet without going to extremes. Many of us do need to wake up to the fact that we should aim to gradually reduce and then control our weight. Not by crash dieting or faddy “systems” but by exchanging our bad habits for better choices, one by one. But if we are also concerned about our children we should tread very carefully indeed when it comes to encouraging our children to eat more healthily as home is often the only non-judgemental place for the bullied, the taunted and those with low self esteem to escape to.
This is not to deny that obesity is a killer and a major contributor to a raft of serious health problems which destroy the quality of life for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of our population. Are we heeding the message? Obesity is also a major financial drain on our health service which is already buckling under the strain of providing care for our growing ageing population. So where does that leave us?
We must teach everyone how to take proper care of themselves and accept responsibility for their own well being. We need reinforcement of the message that we are not all destined or designed to be sylph-like but that we can attain and maintain a healthy weight for our body type, age and height. Is it better to be fit and slight overweight or skinny, sickly and malnourished? Is it better to be slightly overweight and happy or plain miserable fighting a losing battle to be super-thin? Isn’t it time to get back to basics and use our commonsense to guide us?
The best way to lose weight is very obviously to eat less. But instead of simply eating less of the wrong things we can start to eat more of the right things and enjoy a new, more varied and better diet. Of course it is hard to find the willpower to say no to instant fatty, sugary comfort foods but over time we can educate our palates to prefer healthier alternatives. When we do decide it is time to lose some weight then we should be realistic and slowly change our dietary habits rather than look for the overnight crash diet fix. We should be informed enough to establish why we are heavier than we might or should be. Is it because we have fallen into lazy habits and don’t exert ourselves any more ? Or is it because we have come to rely on the instant gratification that ready meals, takeaways and snacks provide? Or is it because we drink too much alcohol or sugary soft drinks and eat a diet that is heavy in fats and sugars. Or is it that we snack constantly to stave off feelings of unhappiness or boredom? Perhaps we have been brought up in a home where plates are piled high at every meal and to leave food or refuse helpings was or is frowned upon. Or, in complete contrast to this, there are people who grew up never knowing where their next meal would come from and who now relish the sight of full cupboards and a groaning table. Whichever, whatever, it is possible to move on and to retrain ourselves and our immediate families into healthier eating habits.
The key to achieving long term healthy weight management lies within. It isn’t ever going to be easy to reverse heavily entrenched habits or to say no to the foodstuffs that we have particular weaknesses for. However all change starts simply by taking one step in the right direction. You do however seriously want to make the change and be ready to commit yourself to doing what it takes to achieve it. There is a great deal of help in many forms to be found out there – from the medical profession, from a range of alternative therapists, from dieticians, exercise classes, to support groups. All can help you establish realistic goals and help keep you on track but never forget that you are the one who has to make it happen. No one else can do it for you. Have faith in yourself and go for it on your own terms!