A letter-writer who calls herself Body Negative was categorized as overweight when she was 5 years old. As an adult, she vacillates between dieting and gorging on cake and ice cream. The sinister cycle of dieting and binge-eating plagues many American women, but recently a counter-movement called Body Positive has sprung up. The movement promotes fat acceptance and attempts to reverse body-shaming, no matter one’s size. But Body Negative is skeptical, writing, “I struggle with how to be body positive after years of being told it’s wrong to be my size and weight. Is there such a thing as unconditional body acceptance?”
Hilary Kinavey, M.S., L.P.C., and Dana Sturtevant, M.S., R.D., the co-owners of Be Nourished, join the Sugars on today’s episode to offer new definitions of health and discuss alternatives to the “dieting mind.”. For more information on today’s episode, including a list of literary recommendations from the Sugars and a link to Cheryl Strayed’s photoshopped Vogue image, visit nytimes.com/dearsugars.
