top of page
Writer's pictureDr Bahrou

Shifting the Focus

You know those pictures where first you see one thing… and then if you look at it long enough or someone gives you a clue that there’s something else there, you can see a whole new picture emerge?


Sometimes I imagine health and wellness to be like that.

For decades, we have been researching how body weight and BMI affect various disease states. Treatment guidelines and expert recommendations include “weight loss" as a general recommendation for everything from diabetes and arthritis to depression and infertility. And yet, all these same decades of research have failed to provide us with any sort of helpful recommendation as to how you go about implementing weight loss – at least nothing that is widely effective or sustainable.


The laundry list of ineffective and/or risky recommendations when the goal is simply “weight loss" is long and varied. Each one more dangerous than the next.

· Eat a healthy diet – a healthy diet is not a one size fits all recommendation. Furthermore, the risks of orthorexia and disordered eating are very real and increasingly prevalent in a body conscious world.

· Exercise - again, not a one sized fits all approach. Movement should feel good and should not be a chore.

· Use of supplements or prescription medication - many can have unwanted or even dangerous side effects.

· Bariatric surgery

I will not say that the above do not have a place, but we need to be critical about how and why we use each approach and tailor to each specific body.


"I'm a big believer in what's called personalized medicine, which refers to customizing your health care to your specific needs based on your physiology, genetics, value system and unique conditions." -- David Agus, author of The End of Illness.

As a physician, I’m well aware of the potential risks of significant excess weight. I specifically say *potential* because it is not and cannot be the sole marker of health. Many very active and healthy individuals live in larger bodies and there are many slim bodies that are very unhealthy. I am also aware that our American lifestyle PROMOTES weight gain. Our constant on-the-go lifestyle, widely available convenience food, plastics and other endocrine disrupting chemicals and, most recently, our limited activities due to the pandemic, are all contributing to country-wide weight gain.

So what do we do?


I don’t have all the answers, but I feel an important first step is to shift the focus.


How do you feel?

What foods work for your body?

Is your digestion healthy?

Do you have energy for your day?

How can you manipulate your environment to work toward health?

What does health mean to you?


Health is personal and varied. We have to stop making sweeping generalizations about what health is and what healthy looks like. We need to deeply understand and trust our bodies.


"Why did we think our bodies were wrong in the first place?" -- Christy Harrison, MPH, RD

In practice, I get many questions about how to lose weight and what is the right diet to eat. My responses are ever evolving. For now, I encourage people NOT to step on my scale. I explain the number it reads won't tell me anything about their health that I wouldn't learn from the hours we will spend talking about their history, their mental and physical well being, and their goals.


I shift the focus.


Salutogenesis - discovering the causes of health.


Interoception - the sense of the internal state of the body.



Spend a little time focusing inward. Spend time listening to and trusting your body. The rest will follow.


108 views0 comments

Comments


bottom of page