Rockhurst Sentinel

Issue date: 4/20/07 Section: Entertainment

Our culture says that thin is in and anything else is "ugly." Dr. Debby Burgard, the creator of Body Positive, explains that there is another way to think about weight. Body Positive focuses on helping women view their bodies in a healthy and positive way, no matter how large or small.

Dr. Burgard explained that she started researching for Body Positive after teaching a class called "We Dance - Exclusively for Women over 200 Pounds." At the same time, she was running an inpatient program for women with eating disorders. Dr. Burgard found that she "was working with the healthiest fat women in my dance classes and the sickest thin women in the hospital." It became very clear to her that health was not automatically linked to thinness. This also meant that it is not really possible to tell by looking at someone's body what they were doing with food or whether they were healthy. Through researching and observing the eating and exercise habits of women of all sizes, Dr. Burgard found that there is a natural range where your body "settles." You could be "underweight" on the height and weight charts and be above that range for you. You could be "overweight" on charts but below that range for you. How do you find it if you can't trust the charts? It is the weight your body settles when you are not compulsive about dieting, exercising, and eating. You can't get away from the truth about how you are living your day-to-day life. You can't live in an unhealthy way and achieve a "healthy" weight.

Whether thin, average-weight, or fat, if you are struggling with food and weight, the recovery process looks much the same. You have to learn to let the focus on weight recede, and instead cultivate weight neutrality. You have to work with your body. You have to learn to be a good parent to yourself, to care about what you need and you have to strengthen your "emotional immune system" to withstand the culture's nasty messages about femaleness and fatness and failure - and work to change them.

For more information, visit the Counseling Center page on the Rockhurst website, visit the Counseling Center in Massman 3 or call X4275.

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