Reflections following ‘Health at Every Size®’ workshop.

I’m SORRY!

Reflections following ‘Health at Every Size®’ workshop.

Last month our team was fortunate to have a professional development workshop on the topic of Health at Every Size® (HAES®) with Meredith Woolsey, Exercise Physiologist and passionate HAES® practitioner and advocate.

In short, the session was eye opening, enlightening, and a little bit “sweary”!! And rightly so. We all exist in an extremely weight centric and fat phobic society, and it’s a hard fact that people in larger bodies are not treated with respect. Our team have a lot to process and unpack, but the first learnings that have come to mind for me are:

Know better, do better.

I acknowledge my privilege as a straight white woman not in a large body. I don’t have lived experience of the challenges that face people in larger bodies, but I am educating myself about how I can be a more inclusive practitioner and leader of our team. I now realise I could have done things better in the past and am committed to doing better in the future.

One of our values at Adelaide Nutrition is inclusivity. We are on a mission to be a truly inclusive service; a space where people feel heard, seen and understood, not judged or ‘put in a box’ and certainly not where weight = health and vice versa. We understand health is far more nuanced than that.

So I want to issue an apology, and a pledge…

I’m sorry to the patients in the past who were weighed in clinic when there was really no need to. It won’t happen again. We will only weigh you if it is absolutely clinically necessary (which isn’t really that often) and even then, it will only happen with your explicit consent.

I’m sorry to the patients in the past who didn’t have a comfortable seat to sit on during our consult. We are committed to taking steps to make sure every client of ours feels comfortable and included in the future, not different from anyone else.

I’m sorry to the patients in the past whom I made feel as though they weren’t enough in their bodies as they were. You were then, and continue to be perfect just the way you are. You don’t need a smaller body, and I’m sorry if I contributed to your pain, shame or guilt. It will NEVER happen again.

I have never been an advocate for intentional weight loss. I know first-hand how damaging the pursuit of weight loss is, both physically and mentally (a post for another day!). In recent years I have always endeavoured to take a non-diet approach with my clients and I’m proud of that, but now I know we can do better. There is SO MUCH MORE to unpack and I promise we will share our thoughts with you as we go forward. Watch this space!