10/26/2025
Fitness, wellness and Nutrition professionals (or anyone this may apply to): Your Body is NOT your business card! Being healthy physically does not have a “look”. True health is very synergistic with a balance of our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. Our young sons and daughters don’t need examples of these crazy aesthic goals constantly in their face. They don’t need to see men or women with goals of getting cut, extremely lean, looking "perfect", toned or having a six pack etc. Parental behaviors related to extreme fitness, nutrition, or dieting (e.g., restrictive eating, obsessive healthy eating like orthorexia, or overemphasis on body weighting shape) are directly linked to increased risk of disordered eating behaviors in children and adolescents. Do I believe in moving our body & nourishing it well? Of course, but the exercise and nutrition extremes in our culture are not healthy. They are obsessive and set an unhealthy example for children period. The statistics say it all, as the rate of adolescent hospitalizations for eating disorders have more than doubled in the last 7 years and the overall hospital admits have risen from 3.5% to 7.8% between all ages, ethnicities and genders. I personally attribute a lot of this to the level of exposure our children now hav to social media and the influencers they may come across there but our environment (and genetics) play the biggest roles of all. I always tell my patients "no food will harm you as much as your eating disorder will". The best gift one can give themselves is doing the deep rooted work of healing their relationship with food, body and movement. Want to learn more about developing a healthy relationship with food, body and movement? Set up an appointment with one of our Highly Specalized Registered Dietitians at Healing Nutrition Therapy. www.healingnutritiontherapyofla.com