How to Love Your Body

Tai Chi, Depression, Diabetes and Body Fat

Sandy Kumskov — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:17:45 +0000

Dr Liu Xin of the University of Queensland in Australia has just released the results of a preliminary study into how eastern-style exercise impacts on health and wellbeing. And it’s very interesting for those of us with body image issues, because what often goes along with negative self-talk and beliefs about our bodies, is depression or at least dysthemia (ongoing low mood) and an I-don’t-care-anymore attitude. That tends to roll into all the other parts of our lives, like settling for crappy relationships and so-so jobs because we think it’s the best we can do – after all, we don’t have perfect bodies. Dr Liu’s study basically repeats what some other studies into diabetes and exercise have shown, which is that even very moderate exercise a few times a week has a significant positive impact on our body’s ability to use glucose, which in turn means we produce less insulin, which is good news for people with Type 2 diabetes.

How about you, what do you think?

Body Image during the holidays I subscribe to a number of other body image blogs,...
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Body Image during the holidays

Sandy Kumskov — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:23:26 +0000

I subscribe to a number of other body image blogs, a couple of them regularly have me scratching my head – I stay subbed because it’s important to me to know what else is going on in the realm of body image. Most of it isn’t pretty – most of it is still ‘beat your body into submission with diet and exercise’ stuff, dressed up as body acceptance. One site that emailed me today is part of a well-known online magazine site, and it seems to move in and out of that women-must-restrict-food thought pattern, like it can’t quite make up its mind. Today’s post on that particular site – which isn’t on my top ten sites list, by the way – is about how the sight of festive foods during the holiday/party season may well cause you to “lose your iron control” and overindulge, and of course you’ll gain weight AND feel guilty because you overate! AAAAAARRGGGGGHHHHHH! Having a

Your Turn: Do you have any advice you would like to share? What tips would you like to add? Please comment below.

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To BMI or Not to BMI …?

Sandy Kumskov — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:03:51 +0000

Summer is the time of year we can feel most body-conscious, and with all the celebrations of the festive season upon us, the media’s focus on weight loss and controlling your eating is practically guaranteed! So it’s timely to think about how true the media’s messages about weight and body fat really are, and to consider some new information to help you make up your own mind. If you’ve got any interest at all in the “Obesity Epidemic”, you’ll also know that it’s based on everyone’s BMI (Body Mass Indicator) number. Your BMI is a two-digit number calculated from your height and weight that is supposed to say something about the state of your health. The BMI first came to public attention in the early 1980s when it replaced the height-weight chart we all measured ourselves against, supposedly as a more reliable indicator of health. Why did the health-weight charts become unreliable? To understand that, we need a quick history lesson: the chart first popped up in 1897, when US life insurance company Metropolitan Life was looking for a way to easily assess the risks of potential policy holders. A team of statisticians led by Met Life’s chief statistician Louis Dublin, collected the only reliable data that was available at the time: weight and height. They analysed the data, developed the charts and released them in 1897. They then spent the next 50 years persuading the medical profession and the public that their charts had some meaning for people’s health. What the chart was really measuring was how old middle-class white males were likely to be when they died, based on their average height and weight. It was a statistical chart that did not account for the quality of their food, fitness, whether or not they smoked, used safe sex practices, or had any risky hobbies or other lifestyle factors. It was only about height and weight. And it was not developed on data collected from women; instead the data was massaged to have some kind of application for women. The first charts also allowed for a gradual increase in that average weight over a lifetime. The definition of “overweight” became anything over that average weight – it meant “over average weight”. The mortality risk, it was generally agreed, only increased when a person’s weight was about 20% over the average weight; and then the increase was only slight. Until 1942 that is, when the tables were revised downwards. The word average was replaced by the word ideal, and the concept of ‘frame size’ was introduced. Now if your ‘frame’ was small, medium or large, your weight range was different. Your frame size was determined by the circumferance of your wrist. The age increment also disappeared and everyone was supposed to maintain forever the weight they were at age 26, assuming of course it was “ideal” to begin with. The weight ranges were also revised downwards, and overnight half of the American population who had previously been ‘average’ became ‘overweight’ without doing a thing. For the first time, ‘average’ became ‘too fat’ and the first “Obesity Crisis” was born. This mechanistic view of the human body as something to be measured and found wanting, has in my opinion, fuelled the negative body image crisis we’re facing, that is killing our best and brightest young women, and severely limiting the life choices that women allow themselves, based on how they feel about the way their bodies look. In 1952 there was another downwards revision – the bottom of each weight range now became the top, and millions more people were classified as ‘overweight’ and therefore ‘unhealthy’, overnight. Remember, these numbers were based on height and weight and age of death only, and that was death from any reason. In the early 1980s Metropolitan Life again revised their tables. Finally research into weight gain and weight loss was producing some meaningful health indicators, and that data showed body fat was not the mortality risk that had previously been believed. So the weight ranges in the tables were revised upwards. The company said: “These are not the weights that minimise the incidence of disease”. But it was too late to back down their position of the past 100 years: the idea that weight alone was an indicator of health had finally become fixed in the culture. There was an absolute furore from the booming diet industry and some parts of the medical profession. Within a very short time, they introduced a more ‘reliable’ measure: the BMI. It is also a statistical tool, not a health one. It is a calculation invented in the mid-1800s by the Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet as a statistical measure of weight scaled according to height. So from invention it was never intended to be an indicator of general health yet it was introduced as one, and is still used this way today. Like the early height-weight charts, the BMI only considers height and weight. As a stand-alone tool it is not able to consider factors such as bone density, frame size, muscle or fat density, ethnic norms, nor health-affecting factors like smoking, your emotional state, whether you practice safe sex, or the quality of food intake. On top of that, in 1998 the US Government adopted the World Health Organisation (WHO) BMI Guidelines, reducing by 2.8 points the changeover from ‘normal’ to ‘overweight’ and from ‘overweight’ to ‘obese’. The WHO’s figures are based on the world average which includes significant numbers of people in Africa and Asia who are severely malnourished if not actually starving. The impact of this change was that overnight 30 million Americans suddenly became overweight and another 20 million obese, without doing anything. It was a repeat of the changes in 1949 and 1952 to the height/weight charts that drove the earlier waves of weight loss marketing. It helped to turn body fat into a reason for moral panic, a disease needing both surgical and life-long drug treatment, and gave marketers an easy way to talk about fat as a health issue. And fueled what has become a crisis for women and their body image. Increasingly, men and children are afflicted by distorted body image issues as well. This is of course my opinion. So what do you believe? I’d suggest you begin by reading some well-researched books, such as Paul Campos’ The Diet Myth, Glen Gaesser’s Big Fat Lies, J Eric Oliver’s Fat Politics, and Francie Berg’s Women Afraid to Eat. These will help you assess the information you see and hear in the media, and start to sift out what role body fat really plays in your health. Then you can make powerful choices to nurture your body regardless of its size, and optimise your health.

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Whale or Mermaid? Fat Woman or Thin Woman?

Sandy Kumskov — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:44:19 +0000

This arrived in my email today. I have no idea who originally wrote it, if it was you please let me know and I’ll be delighted to give you full credit. You’re a woman I’d like to get to know Recently, in a large French city, a poster featuring a young,thin and tanned woman appeared in the window of a gym. It said: “THIS SUMMER DO YOU WANT TO BE A MERMAID OR A WHALE?” A middle aged woman, whose

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A Good Read, or a Rag?

Sandy Kumskov — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:26:17 +0000

When was the last time you read a woman’s magazine, and by the time you reached the back cover you felt good about yourself? Now I’m not talking about a food and home magazine, or a wellbeing-focused publication, but the glossy weeklies and monthlies that focus on diet, exercise, weight loss, cosmetics, gossip, and fashion. Chances are that you felt worse about yourself at the end of the magazine than you did when you started reading it; that you’d decided to try the new diet; and that you were at least keeping an eye out for a new cream or potion to help you fix your problems. Women’s bodies, and parts of bodies, are used to sell everything from computers to cars to builders. Those bodies have been becoming younger and thinner over the last 30 years, and it’s a rare magazine that doesn’t have a regular makeover feature, encouraging women to gain the image of the models in the glossy ads that actually pay for the magazine. The models of course are airbrushed, and despite the Australian Federal Government’s decree in 2008 that magazines must disclose when images are digitally enhanced, I haven’t been struck with any great awareness of that disclosure. I rarely read these magazine now though, unless I notice a particularly outrageous headline that I feel compelled to blog about. As a younger woman I did read the women’s mags, alongside my computing and natural health ones; reading was almost expected on the train commute to work. In those years, and for many years, I was very focussed on my body’s flaws and the magazines absolutely fed that insecurity. That cult of youth is no accident, and nor is the cult of thinness. Both are entirely economic, driven by the advertising of products that are unlikely to deliver the look they advertise anyway. Last year I read that a popular cosmetic company were being sued by an advertising regulator because they did not disclose that their photographed model, promoting a mascara, was wearing false eyelashes. The advertisement therefore was misleading because it suggested the product could produce eyelashes like those shown in the photograph. The company’s defense was that “women know the models wear false eyelashes”. I was highly amused when I read that, because, actually, I didn’t know. I assumed the company chose models for their luscious lashes, the same way they choose stocking models for their lovely legs and hand models for their lovely long fingers and perfect nails. And only in recent years have we become aware that actors have body doubles for their movies, and often have several: one with a perfect bottom, one with perfect breasts, one with gorgeous ankles. For years it was a secret that even our most gorgeous women – and men – are composites of several people. Women who feel insecure about their bodies are more likely to buy beauty products, new clothes, and diet pills, potions, lotions, and programs. The diet industry is worth around $4 billion a year in Australia alone, and they are selling temporary weight loss! Meanwhile research tells us that exposure to images of thin, young, air-brushed female bodies is linked to depression, loss of self-esteem and the development of unhealthy eating habits in women and girls. Since the cult of thinness really kicked off in the 1960s, women around the planet have been starving themselves into ill health, both physical and mental, to achieve some of the perfection which will, the magazines says, bring us ultimate happiness. In Australia in 2008, a dozen children under the age of five were treated for anorexia. Where did children so young learn to restrict their eating? And why? Sadly, mothers carry a good share of the responsibility. Our children don’t know that we are lumpy, less than perfect, and “need to get into shape”, they simply love their mothers. And when that mother is clearly restricting her eating and critically analyzing her body, the children will naturally copy those behaviors. If it seems an aberration that a child so young would restrict their eating, consider this: • in the 2006 National Survey of Young Australians, body image was the third most pressing issue, behind family conflict and worries over alcohol and drugs. But in 2007 32.3% of respondents put body image in their top three, ahead of family conflict and coping with stress • The Australian Medical Association says stick-thin models contribute to the problem because they have a strong influence on body image and self-esteem among teenagers • Around two-thirds of new cases of eating disorders arise in women who have dieted moderately • A recent report found one in five 12-year-old girls regularly used fasting and vomiting to lose weight • One in four Australian girls wants to get plastic surgery. Eating disorders are currently classified as a mental health disorder, and of all the mental health disorders more people die from anorexia than any other disorder. Anorexia sufferers are more than five times as likely to die as other people in their age group; it is a fatal illness and it’s killing the best and brightest of our young women. And girls don’t just grow out of anorexia; they grow into women who struggle their entire lives with the nagging voice telling them to severely limit their eating or they will be fat and imperfect. Women with anorexia are more than 12 times as likely to die as other women of the same age. The other well-known eating disorder is bulimia, suffered by about 5% of all women, some studies say 10%. Mostly worryingly, studies suggest that only a small percentage of sufferers are ever treated; it is the great hidden cost of being thin and “hot”. My biggest concern with the images of women and their interests that these magazines depict though, is that they present just one way of being female: looking perfect is all that matters. Every woman I know has so many layers to her being and life that it is frankly insulting that women are depicted the way they are in the magazines. The Australian Federal Government is establishing a body image advisory committee to try to get some control over the massively destructive messages we women take on. The Government’s actions aside, I believe that the cultural change we need to see for the sake of our childrens’ mental and physical health, needs to come from within the family. And the centre of the family is usually mum. I’d suggest step one would be to stop buying the magazines. Just stop. They’re full of exaggerations and half-truths and plain nasty gossip about people we don’t even know, and which causes those people pain. If your son or daughter was one of those people, would you want strangers reading those lies and half truths, examining every aspect of his or her life, making themselves feel better at her expense? If you read the magazines, you’re funding the people who make up those lies, cause that pain. You can stop; your little contribution does count. The gossipy stories only exist anyway to fill out the space between the advertisements that contribute to our societal anorexic thinking. If you really want magazines because you enjoy the light read (and we all need that relaxation once in a while), look around, make a different choice. Many women are sick of the distortions, and they are behind new magazines appearing on the newsagents’ shelves, with content that appeals to the many facets of a woman’s life. So if you love your magazine read check out some of the new titles, you might be pleasantly surprised. Balance is badly, madly needed, and the ones to bring it, are we women.

Your thoughts?

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Meridian Tapping EFT and Acne

Sandy Kumskov — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:38:59 +0000

Earlier this year I met Fran Kerr from High On Health, a busy and useful natural health blog which is primarily focussed on helping people who are dealing with acne, to find solutions. Fran has dealt with acne for much of her life and if I didn’t know she’d had acne it would be hard to believe by looking at her dewy clear skin; she clearly knows her stuff! As I have a particular interest in helping women improve their body image, and Fran knows first hand and through her readers’ stories that acne is a body-image demon, we were looking for an opportunity to work together. A while later Fran had a coaching call with one of her readers, Radha, who was feeling quite desperate about ever getting improvement in her acne. Radha was diligent in making the dietary changes that Fran suggested and yet her skin wasn’t making the progress she’d hoped for. Fran wondered if there were some emotional blocks in the way, and we set up a time for the three of us to explore this, as part of a program Fran offers her members. Of course EFT was the transformation tool of choice, and transformation is certainly what Radha experienced over about 45 minutes. She described the state of her acne, from the sebaceous cysts to her feelings of panic about another bout of severe acne. She arrived at some amazing new awarenesses for her life and the acne. If you’d like to listen in to Radha’s acne improving EFT call, please first print off the EFT Tapping Points, and then click the play button below. As soon as Fran’s membership site is live (any day now) I’ll be taking this audio down. Meanwhile you can benefit from the Borrowing Benefits power of EFT by tapping along with Radha as she faces down her acne demons. The audio is right here, just click to play it:

What are your thoughts on the subject?

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What’s the Worst Thing You Can Say to A Woman?

Sandy Kumskov — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:09:16 +0000

I’m willing to bet a substantial sum of money on a phrase that goes something like “You look fat in that”, or “Have you put on weight?”, or even used as an epithet: ” fat b****h”. And on the flipside of that particular coin, it’s become almost normal for a woman to say of herself something like, “I need to lose weight”. So normal in fact, that the language of fat has become part of our normal language, and very few people even question it. There is hardly any other word in the English language that causes so much pain, fear and anxiety as the tiny three letter word: f-a-t. It has become a curse, something to battle and even war against, to be beaten, controlled, managed, and even medicated with drugs and surgery that can be life-threatening.

And Yet What is Fat?

Fat cells are more than just the body’s way to store excess calories; they have a whole lot of other functions in the body, including cushioning your internal organs against external damage, providing insulation, and possibly even as a secure vault for fat-soluble toxins the

Did I leave anything out?

Whale or Mermaid? Fat Woman or Thin Woman? This arrived in my email today. I have no idea...

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Emotional Eating and Food Obsession

Sandy Kumskov — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:00:17 +0000

You know how this one goes: You decide it’s time to lose that spare tyre or muffin top. Inspired by an article in the newspaper or the buzz on TV about the newest sure-fire weight loss plan, you buy the book, hit the shops to make sure you’ve go the supplies you’ll need, and if you’re really good, you even clean the ‘illegals’ out of your fridge or pantry. If you’ve done this routine before, you might have a little splurge of ‘illegals’ as a last hurrah before the diet begins, because after all, it will be weeks before you can have that food again! And the next day, you wake determined that this diet will be the one that finally works. You carefully read the book for the day 1 breakfast, and follow it to the letter. Then you pack your lunch and any allowed snacks, and set off confident that you’re strong and committed, you can see and feel how you’ll be without the muffin top! All day your commitment stays strong, thank goodness you were organised with a legal snack when the afternoon munchies hit! And now you’re carefully measuring portions or counting swaps for dinner. You go to sleep pleased that you made it through day 1. Day 2 dawns and maybe the breakfast is something that you’re not really fond of, but you eat it anyway because you’re still tuned into life after the muffin top! And today goes much like yesterday; at dinner time you’re still feeling pretty pleased with your will power and commitment. Day 3 arrives. You follow the routine of the last two days but by morning tea time all you can think about is the snack box at reception, or your favourite choccie. You’re not hungry, you just can’t stop that little image coming into your head. The feeling of virtue doesn’t feel quite as powerful when it’s measured on the chocolate meter. But you white-knuckle it through the day. After dinner is when the trouble really hits. Those food ads on TV that you normally tune out start to seem really colourful. Could that possibly be the most interesting thing you’ve seen all day? What’s wrong with you? It’s not like you’re hungry, and you never usually eat dessert. Could you have left uneaten some of today’s calories or carbs or swaps or even parts of portions? What if you borrowed some from tomorrow? Well if you had any willpower at all, this wouldn’t be an issue, you tell yourself. Just another indication of how weak you really are, no wonder you’ve got that muffin top! Stop. Backup. Let’s take a look at what’s really going on in your body, based on 60 year old research that’s never been duplicated because of the cruelty of it; but is nevertheless based in solid science. It’s called the Minnesota Starvation Study and was conducted over a year at the University of Minnesota in the USA, in 1944-45. Why would anyone study starvation? Coming out of WW2, the Allies were very aware that many of Europe’s people were starving, and had been for many months if not years. The study’s aim was to find the best way to re-feed these starving people so they could return to good health in the shortest time possible. As there was no handy population of starving people in the US the research team created one from hand-picked young men who were strong, healthy, fit, intelligent and psychologically robust. The team studied every part of the men’s bodies and minds for three full months so there was nothing about these men that the researchers didn’t know. And then they cut the calories to starvation levels: 1560 per day for the next six months, to reduce the men’s body weight by 25%. Yes you might be shocked that that many calories were regarded as starvation, as I was when I first read this study. What was more interesting is what happened to the men’s thought patterns and emotional health over the first days of the study.

They started to think about food non-stop.
They developed bizarre food rituals, such as cutting their food up into very small bits, eating slowly, eating off smaller plates: all to fool themselves into thinking they were eating enough.
They hid food to eat later
Talked about food all the time
They even lost interest in sex. Pinup girls disappeared and pictures of food took their place
They collected food preparation implements, recipe books and anything else related to food
All they talked about was food.

The physical side effects were horrifying:

mysterious skin complaints appeared
sleep was disturbed
energy flagged
their idealism disappeared
emotional problems erupted (two even became psychotic)

Am I Turning Pro-Diet?

Sandy Kumskov — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:46:12 +0000

If you’ve read more than a post or two on this blog you may have the feeling that I am very much anti-calorie restriction diet, anti-high-or-low any particular food, and very anti-foodlike-substances packaged up prettily to look enticing and part you from your money (and your health, by the way!) This past weekend, my business partner Annie Meredith and I were at a small alternative health expo, with our new Spirit of Woman Australian Wild Flower Essences, and I had the great good fortune to meet a woman who has had an enormous impact on my family’s health! I grew up in a family of good cooks, and am a good cook, but was also heavily influenced as a young woman by the Pritikin craze, and aunts and cousins and friends doing what I now recognise as crazy experimentation with their bodies by following programs like the Israeli Army Diet, and the Drinking Man’s Diet, and the Grapefruit Diet, and so many others, to get thinner. After Pritikin (don’t eat made-up mustard!), the next one I can remember following closely was The F-Plan, and it spiralled downwards from there. I was the classic diet-program junkie. I wasn’t overweight when I started but I sure was 15 years later! It’s a familiar story, right? So when I found Changing Habits, Changing Lives in my favourite bookshop, as I browsed through it everything I read just felt so true! Over the next few months things at home changed, artificial sweeteners were out, rapadura was in, full fat milk was back, butter was back, olive oil was back. My family hasn’t eaten popular commercial cereals for ten years, enjoys good home baked foods made with butter and eggs and flour and sugar, and hearty meals that often begin with olive oil, garlic, ginger and onions. And I became an ingredient-reading label nazi, and I’m not sorry We were back on track, back on the path of eating the way my grannie had taught me, and I had the hard science from this book to back me up. The writer was “opposite nutritionist” Cyndi O’Meara. And it was Cyndi who was also speaking at the alternative health Expo this past weekend. So when I listened in on Cyndi’s talk, and she started talking about her 21 day diet my first response was disappointment – how could someone who is such a passionate advocate of natural food to really nourish the body, be talking about calorie restriction? The Minnesota Starvation Study taught us that every cell in the body hates calorie restriction, how could she be advocating that path? My disappointment lasted for one breath, as Cyndi explained what her diet was really about – learning how to eat good, real, nutritious food again, and make it easy, and regain

How about you, what do you think?

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Loving Your Body Program – Journal?

Sandy Kumskov — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:31:57 +0000

Are you interested in a journal to help you shed the negative thoughts and beliefs you have about your body, and reprogram yourself with thoughts and beliefs that support your health, wellbeing, and human gorgeousness? If you are, please leave a comment below. When I get twenty or so comments,

So, what do you think?

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