Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Changing the Conversation

In a recent Nutrisystem commercial, Marie Osmond asserts: "As women, we always talk about how we should look or what’s the best way to lose weight."

Is this the conversation all of us are having? Are we all conspiring around this goal? And if so, what we can do to challenge it?


The truth is, it's spot on for many of us. Some women are engaged in evolving dialogues that have nothing to do with weight or shape. But it's sometimes challenging to get women from the first group to the second.


In a recent interview, a reporter asked me for tips on what else women can talk about if we're to ditch fat and diet talk. My tip is, there are no tips - because the answer is infinite - if we remove fat/diet talk from our language, we get to talk about everything else.

Women have so much more to talk about than food and weight. We have jobs and families and hopes and ideas, feelings and interests and beliefs. If we remove fat and weight talk from our dialogues, we're freed up to talk about anything else - everything else - to explore and create and connect in a deeper way, and ultimately, to be more of our authentic selves.

And shouldn't this be the goal?




You can find Does Every Woman Have an Eating Disorder? Challenging Our Nation's Fixation with Food and Weight on Amazon (as a paperback and Kindle) and at BarnesandNoble.com.













5 comments:

Meliss said...

wow, what a scarey question that reporter asked you? wow. i think it's never been more apparent to me how we limit ourselves!!!!

and i'm quite guilty, quite often. it's not that i talk about weight and body a lot, because no one i know is interested, actually. but i THINK about it way way too much. the inner dialogue is such a waste of time

thank you for this wonderful post!

Meliss said...

by the way, i love your blog.

Meliss said...

last comment, i promise - just bought the book. can't wait to read!!!!

drstaceyny said...

Appreciate all your comments and thanks for buying the book!

Unknown said...

Hi Dr. Stacey.

I LOVE this post. You're bringing up an incredibly powerful issue and one that I personally deeply relate to.

I relocated to Vienna, Austria over a year ago (from California) and the cultural differences have been life changing. Women here talk much, much less about diet, exercise, and body image related matters. Conversations are diverse and full of depth. Changing the way I walk and engage has changed the way my mind works. I'm grateful to think and talk less about diet and exercise. And I'm grateful to see people like you bring up this topic.

Thank you!
Crystal Stokes