I Had No Idea

This Monday marks the start of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, an annual national campaign to raise awareness around eating disorders. If you don't have an eating disorder (and I'm deeply, truly glad for you if you've never experienced one), and if you don't know anyone who has an eating disorder (you do, I promise, but you might not be aware of it), you might think this campaign has nothing to do with you.

But it does.

This year's theme, "I Had No Idea," can be interpreted in various ways. For instance: "I had no idea eating disorders are so deadly." "I had no idea eating disorders are so prevalent." "I had no idea eating disorders aren't just a phase." "I had no idea my child/friend/spouse/colleague had an eating disorder."

I'd like to suggest another interpretation: "I had no idea how our obsession with thinness was bad for everyone's health."

Eating disorders are diseases with a strong genetic and biological component. Not everyone can develop one, thankfully; you need to be biologically susceptible.

Disordered eating, on the other hand, isn't a disease and doesn't require special genetic vulnerability. It can and does happen to anyone. Right now we've got something of an epidemic of disordered eating, especially among teens and young adults. Especially among women.

Our culture's current rhetoric around weight and health emphasizes the perils of obesity and praises thinness at nearly any cost. Such rhetoric won't cause an eating disorder, but it is causing a level of obsession with weight that costs all of us energy, happiness, and health.

And it's not based in good science. I've spent the last five years immersed in the scientific evidence around weight and health, and most of what I discovered there shocked me because it didn't match the rhetoric and assumptions we're so invested in.

I'll be sharing some of those findings here in the weeks to come. They're also detailed in my new book, Body of Truth: How Science, History, and Culture Drive Our Obsession with Weight—and What We Can Do About It, which will be published April 1. What I have to say may shock you, but that's not my intention. I want you to know what's true, what's not true, and what we simply don't understand about the complex relationships between weight and health. I want you to be able to draw your own conclusions and make your own best choices around health. I want you to have an idea.

I look forward to our conversations.