Befriending the Body

For a long time, many women were taught to treat the body as an opponent.

Something to restrict, discipline, shrink, push past and correct.

Diet culture taught us to distrust hunger. Exercise culture taught us that movement could repay what we had eaten. Wellness culture then arrived with a new set of things to eliminate, cleanse and optimise.

The language changed.

The suspicion of the body often did not.

Inflammation is a good example.

Inflammation itself is not inherently harmful. It is part of the body's normal response to infection, injury and threat.

Problems arise when inflammatory activity becomes persistent or dysregulated, something associated with a wide range of chronic health conditions.

Midlife is a valuable time to tend the foundations of long-term health.

But perhaps we can do this without beginning another war.

Instead of asking:

How little can I eat?

We might ask:

How well can I nourish this body now?

Plants in variety. Protein. Fibre. Healthy fats. Water. Food that satisfies. Movement that supports muscle and bone. Sleep. Rest. Pleasure. Time enough to eat rather than constantly consuming food while doing something else.

None of this requires perfection.

Nor is food the whole story. Genetics, illness, smoking, alcohol, movement, sleep, chronic stress and many other factors contribute to our inflammatory landscape.

There is no single anti-inflammatory life.

There is simply the body we have, the circumstances we live within, and the choices available to us.

Perhaps befriending the body begins there.

Not with surrendering responsibility for our health.

With changing the relationship from which we tend it.