What Makes a Body "Healthy?"
Well, it’s not a checklist, a BMI category, or a green smoothie.
I think about the word “health” a lot. Because it’s a concept that has taken on a life of its own — one that is fraught with morality, assumptions, and aspiration.
We’re told it looks a certain way. Acts a certain way. Weighs a certain amount. And often, we’re told we have to earn it.
But what even is health?
Is it a person with all their biomarkers in the “normal” range, but who silently struggles with chronic and invisible pain? Is it a body that appears “fit”, but a mind with debilitating depression? Is it someone who drinks a green smoothie every morning, but amplifies anti-science myths that put others at risk? Is it a person with “perfect” blood pressure, but who experiences disordered eating? Is it a body capable of running marathons, but then lies awake at night consumed by anxiety? Is it someone who never misses a doctor’s appointment, but feels isolated and unseen in their community? Is it that friend who eats all the “right” foods, but secretly spends every meal in fear and guilt?
The reality is, there are no absolutes here.
Because health isn’t a static checklist or a finish line. It isn’t the absence of illness, or the pursuit of perfection. It’s something more fluid, more human.
Not everyone will experience health in the same way.
Some of us live with pain, illness, or conditions that don’t resolve.
Some are navigating trauma or oppressive systems that make rest and nourishment out of reach.
I didn’t realize it until right now, but I think this is fundamentally what I’ve been exploring through every conversation on the podcast and in every newsletter. Because “health” touches so many corners of our lives.
For example, episodes and writing on…
Each one circles back to the same truth: health is not one story, one body, or one set of rules.
Health can look like taking your meds without shame.
It can look like asking for help, or saying no.
It can look like eating dessert without bargaining with yourself.
It can look like rest on days your body aches, or movement that brings joy instead of punishment.
Most of all, it can look like access to food, medical care, social support, and security.
Because our wellbeing isn’t just personal. It’s political. When the world looks away as a humanitarian crisis of starvation takes place, but celebrates the swapping of high fructose corn syrup for cane sugar, we have to ask: have we completely lost the plot?
So, maybe “health” isn’t even the right word anymore.
Maybe what we’re really seeking is care, connection, safety, and enoughness. If that’s the case, then health has to stop being a measuring stick handed down by systems invested in profit, thinness, and productivity. It needs to become a practice — a relationship we’re allowed to define for ourselves.
Lately I’ve been wondering if the question isn’t how do I become healthy?
But—how do I care for this body…here, now, in all its complexity?
Not, am I healthy?
But rather—am I living in a way that feels connected, spacious, and true to me?
And, further: how do we care for one another?
Because maybe true health isn’t a personal project — maybe it’s something that connects us all in our shared humanity. Not a destination, but a way of being with each other, and never leaving anyone behind.
Every body deserves respect — even in illness.
Every body deserves care — even in struggle.
Every body deserves compassion. Always.
Lately, how have you been feeling about the word “health”?
Has your idea of what “healthy” means changed as you’ve noticed diet culture creeping in?
If we forget all the rules for a second, what does actually caring for your body look like for you?
Oh, I have definitely reconsidered my definition of healthy as I've gained weight over the last five years. Granted, I still benefit from a huge amount of thin privilege as a size 12-ish, but my mother has gotten on my case several times about my "health," and I've had to tell her, listen, I'm actually exercising MORE now than I was when I was thin (but nobody asked me about it when I was a size 6 because...I was a size 6), I'm eating ENOUGH and also not stressing about food the way I did before. I remember in grad school at my absolute thinnest having a little panic attack when a boyfriend suggested grabbing pizza because I hadn't planned my day around having pizza for dinner. When my mom asked me what was up with my weight--she is very big on the "what are you hungry for" therapy speak, where like, you wouldn't be heavier/eating a lot if you weren't in some kind of emotional turmoil that you weren't dealing with--I was surprised because I had honestly stopped thinking about it, and I was not doing much if any emotional eating, just kind of going with the flow. I'm not counting macros or anything but I do try to balance my meals for what I need to do; my work requires a lot of brain energy and focus from me and I can feel it by 3 PM when I haven't eaten enough carbs in a day and still need to be good at my job!
Sometimes I see posts from my Facebook memories about dieting and being thin, or about celebrities' bodies, and I feel sad that it took me this long to get here. Apart from dieting for so long probably raising my set point, if I look back at pictures of me as a kid, what I look like now is what I've always looked like--except for the few years in my late 20s when I was WAY too thin, in retrospect. I have promised myself never to restrict again, but even if my weight did fluctuate, I don't think I'm built to be smaller than a size 10. I've really resonated with the idea that if you have be constantly on your guard about food and vigilant about exercise to maintain your body size, then it's probably not the healthiest body size for you. I've maintained my current weight for almost three years without trying too hard, which suggests to me that this is pretty much where I'm settling. And that has to be okay because otherwise I sacrifice peace of mind.
I am just coming out of a spiral where my eating disorder reared its ugly head and was shouting at me again… “don’t eat, don’t eat that food, go exercise until you drop.” And it was in response to going to the doctor. Going to the doctor used to mean a lecture about my body size even with normal blood work. Even with an eating disorder that was starving me. Once I got acknowledgment and treatment, I still held onto the crutch of “I can do this as long as my ‘health’ holds….” And the end of that sentence was my eating disorder waiting in the wings… “…then we will go back.”
Even with the spiral. Even with the internet searches all saying “lose weight to address the bloodwork issue”, I finally had two providers (PCP and therapist) who were in my corner and not my eating disorders corner. I panicked and brought up GLP1 as a way to shrink. They both said that’s not a good idea. I told them I was afraid I would get sicker and sicker. They both reminded me I had been sicker when I was going 20 hours without food just to binge again when I could no longer starve. That I was not healthy exercising 6 hours a day. And I was able to feel supported and connected. And seen.
I don’t think anyone can tick all the boxes of health. Just like no one can be perfect in any other way… being human is being messy and not the average or the “most normal”. It’s about being you, with support and community and joy and sadness and hard moments and trying again. It’s messy and that’s fine.