The so-called “health generation” that became a “torment generation”

We read all the time about healthy bodies, healthy food, healthy exercise, and yet we know very little about what it really means to be healthy. That’s because such important and delicate issues as body care and self-esteem started to be treated in a brutal, inhumane and harmful way.

False and mistaken information is disseminated on social media by people without instructions or medical knowledge, confusing people and encouraging them to do diets and crazy #projects. Humiliations disguised as motivation are spread to the four corners of the world. fit world – who has never come across the well-known phrase “if it’s bad for me, imagine who you had dinner for”.

Isn’t it time we rethink this conversation? Of being more generous with ourselves, with our bodies and the bodies of others? Finding an approach to the subject that is more humane, that puts our well-being as a priority?

This is the struggle of Paola Altheia, nutritionist, dancer and creator of I’m not exhibition, a blog where she, in a didactic and humorous way, deconstructs weight loss myths and beauty standards. Here, she talks about the mistakes of the “health generation” and how we can overcome anxieties generated by this market:

Juliana de Faria: What is your view on the current moment regarding body care, food and nutrition?
Paola Altheia: It is a worrying and paradoxical moment. Because there has never been so much talk about healthy living and special foods and never before has there been such a vertiginous growth in eating behavior and self-image problems. Fat Talk and Diet Talkexpressions that do not (yet) have equivalents in Portuguese, express the discomfort of people’s minds completely terrified, hating their bodies and not knowing what to eat.

How many times have we witnessed dialogues about the guilt of having gone off the diet, or about how much a certain food is caloric or a tip to “dry belly” (was the belly wet?). And how many times a week is a group of women able to get together to sing a litany of criticisms of their own bodies (cellulite, wrinkles, stretch marks, fat, weight, size on the mannequin…).

The so-called “health generation” is actually the “torment generation”. The medical and scientific community is so desperate to contain the advance of overweight, obesity and chronic diseases around the globe that the result is that we are currently living in a moment of frank terror of food and fat (in our body, in the body others and in food).

JF: What is food terrorism and how can we establish a peaceful relationship with food?
SHOVEL: Nutritional terrorism is the can/can’t, good/bad, right/wrong, healthy/unhealthy dichotomy. Human food, which is a cultural manifestation and socialization factor, is being discussed and defined in a reductionist, alarming and simplistic way. People are bewildered, not knowing what to eat and believing that food can have magical slimming properties or satanic fattening potential (by the way, when I talk about body worship I mean “cult” in the full sense of the word: we worship bodies. We worship lean mass. And we believe that fat is the source of evil on Earth).

To get rid of this disturbing thought, it is important to understand that what will define whether a food is fattening/losing weight or is good/harmful is the amount and frequency of consumption. That is: the question is not the food itself, but the use that is made of it. I’m a nutritionist, however, I don’t believe in diets and I don’t prescribe them.

Each person needs to regain the necessary body awareness to identify their signs of hunger and satiety without food norms commanding their body from the outside in. Healthy eating is a phenomenon that occurs from the inside out. Much is propagated that the person loses weight and then will be at peace. And the reality is the reverse of that: first you are at peace with food and with your body. And slimming comes as a result.

JF: You suffer from a lot of violence online. Talk a little about gordophobia and why people act like that.
SHOVEL: There are people who see me as a crazy person who hangs out on the internet glorifying obesity. That I’m a nutritionist who chose the wrong course because I don’t do diets. Where has it ever been said that a fat person has the right to be happy, if everything society preaches is the opposite? My work is a vilification against limiting beliefs deeply rooted in people’s minds: women have an obligation to go on a diet, all thin people are healthy, all fat people are sick, thin is beautiful, fat is ugly, thin people have discipline and fat people don’t have “strength”. of will”.

I shake this vat of prejudices, I shake hard and I shake hard! Some people climb the walls because I say that it’s not forbidden to eat chocolate cake and that no one has the obligation to go to the gym to work out every day. Remember that what I propose is the middle way. The string of the instrument, when too tight, breaks and when too loose, it does not produce any sound.

We too need to find common sense and balance in our health care. I like Oscar Wilde’s phrase that says that “it is convenient to be moderate in everything, even in moderation”. in times of No Pain, No Gain there is no place for moderation (and a little bit of laziness). This is the reason for so much animosity. Haters and cyberbullying are realities every blogger faces. They can knock you down or you can use them as a springboard. I prefer the second option.