Religion of Thinness

Stop Criticizing Your Body and Start Critiquing Our Culture's Devotion to Thinness

In my last blog, I encouraged you to make a different kind of New Year’s resolution. Instead of vowing to do whatever it takes to lose weight and “improve” your figure, how about committing to practicing peace with your body? In other words, why not make a conscious effort to accept, appreciate, nurture, and enjoy body you have? 

Beware of the New Year’s (False) Promise of the Born-Again Body

It is already past the middle of January. Is it time to re-evaluate your New Year's resolution?

Our Addiction to the Illusion of a "Better" Body

I recently finished Chris Hedges’ new book, Empire of Illusions: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of the Spectacle. It’s a trenchant critique of the various ways our society encourages us to escape reality by retreating into the array of fantasies it offers through various forms of popular culture. While the fantasy of the “perfect” body is not a focus in the book, it certainly falls into the category of “illusions” that divert our attention from the real issues and challenges of our lives, and thereby perpetuate the very suffering we want to alleviate. Perhaps the worst part about this illusion is that so many of us, women in particular, have become addicted to it.

A New Perspective for a New Year

Starting the New Year with a New Perspective

To whom does your body belong? 

The answer to this question seems so obvious that I find myself reluctant to ask it. Everybody knows that each human body belongs to the person who inhabits it (or who is it, depending on how you understand embodiment). Isn’t it abundantly clear that each person is the owner and master of her or his own flesh? Doesn’t your body belong exclusively to you?