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.
The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/eating-disorders/)
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.
“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.
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.