Dining

Gutting the Conversation Around Food, Body and Health

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Editor’s Note: This piece mentions disordered eating behaviors. Trying to eat healthily and consistently at college is a daunting task for anyone. It becomes a monumental task when faced with health issues that warrant food restrictions and limitations and few resources to go around. Over the past year, I’ve learned that a lot of –– what I previously considered to be –– physical symptoms of anxiety and stress, were mostly pre-existing gastrointestinal (GI, a fancy way to say “stomach”) issues. My relationship with food has waxed and waned to an occasionally toxic degree; I’m pretty sure that I am not the only one.

Opinion

SMITH | Addressing the “Quarantine 15”

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In a time of social distancing, our point of comparison is prone to shift to social media and other sources of often unattainable, altered bodies, so it might be a good time to limit or disengage.

News

Body Positive Cornell Initiative Hopes to Push Back Against Societal Stereotypes About Weight and Health

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“I’m not accepting what I can’t change, I’m changing what I can’t accept,” activist and entrepreneur Sonya Renee Taylor said Sept. 20, at a Body Positive Cornell event, a University initiative striving to help Cornellians lead a healthy lifestyle that doesn’t focus on weight. “Our society tells us that we should be able to lose weight and keep it off, and always promises this or that diet as the solution,” Jennie Bernstein, Body Positive outreach coordinator at Cornell Health, told The Sun. The resulting detrimental effects including stigmatization of heavier weights and harmful behavior like “weight cycling,” the practice of losing and gaining weight repeatedly. Instead, Bernstein believes that taking the emphasis off weight and instead focusing on “improving health and lifestyle behaviors” is a better attitude towards our bodies and life in general, as weight doesn’t have a direct connection to health conditions.

eating disorders

Behind the Foodie

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I hope that my own personal experience will stop people from belittling eating disorders. I have been living with one for three years and am still struggling to change my attitude towards eating to support a healthy and sustainable lifestyle. I am learning that, rather than simply looking healthy, I actually want to be healthy, both in body and in mind.