Happy is the New Skinny

You look, feel, and ARE your best when you are HAPPY.

by Lyssa Myska Allen, who knows how to be happy but not how to be skinny

“Strong is the new skinny” / “Fit is the new skinny” / “Healthy is the new skinny” … why would anything want to be the new skinny?! Skinny is all kinds of things but in this context it is an ideal: people want to be skinny. But for most people, “skinny” is an unattainable ideal that can create disordered thinking physically and mentally.

The substitutions that have been making the internet rounds under the “fitspiration” movement—strong, fit, healthy and the like—are only marginally better, with the possibility of creating similarly disordered thinking. Are people to replace an unattainable starvation-based ideal with an equally-unatainable ideal that involves several hours a day of fitness training and regimented eating?

Gena at Choosing Raw addresses the “Healthy” issue better than I could: “To present ‘healthy’ as an ideal is both wonderful and a little tricky: wonderful because it gives us hope and motivates us; tricky because it can make those of us with health conditions feel frustrated with our bodies, or even blame ourselves for the fact that we’re not always glowy, energetic, and pain-free.”

So, we propose an alternative: nothing needs to be the new skinny! 

… but it IS catchy, so if there IS a need for a new skinny, let the daaaaawg lend you her advice: HAPPY is the new skinny. You look, feel, and ARE your best when you are HAPPY.