EDEN’s Approach

EDEN believes that westernised environments increasingly include messages about idealised body size and the ‘problem’ of fat. These have subtly infiltrated many of our institutions, commercial enterprises, communities and homes to the point where being fat is unquestionably bad and being thin is unquestionably good. In cultures and societies that do not value body diversity, that abhor fat and that value and promote weight management and weight loss practices, a climate is created where fat people often feel bad about themselves and everybody else becomes terrified of getting fat. Within this context people begin to link and understand their health, behaviours, identity, morality and value in terms of their body size. This linking is associated with dieting practices and the loss of body trust.

Dieting practices and the loss of body trust are related to the development of disrupted eating, eating issues/disorders, and often weight cycling (which is itself unhealthy) and can lead (ironically) to weight gain. The severity or extent of these issues can also be influenced by gendered expectations, family experiences, a background of abuse, major life stressors, unrealistic pressures to achieve, developmental or life-stage challenges (e.g., puberty, pregnancy, menopause), exposure to weight discrimination, poverty, racism, and disruption to normal eating patterns.

Eating and body image issues include a wide range of experiences and practices such as the clinically defined eating disorders anorexia and bulimia, eating past fullness, over-exercising, body dissatisfaction, purging, restricting, abuse of weight management medications, and yo-yo dieting and weight cycling (among others).

EDEN believes that the dominant paradigm in Westernised cultures views eating issues/disorders, body dissatisfaction and ‘obesity’/’overweight’ as problematic and distinct individualised phenomena. We challenge this thinking. What we view as problematic is not weight per se but weight loss and/or weight gain that is a response to environmental pressures, experiences of oppression, and fat phobia. EDEN honours the natural diversity of body sizes and shapes and accepts that there are a wide range of healthy bodies which sit outside of medicalised ideas around ‘healthy weight’. In EDEN’s view any attempts to alter one’s natural weight (regardless of initial weight) can lead to eating issues, body dissatisfaction and weight gain.

What sets EDEN apart from many organisations that work with eating and weight issues is our commitment to and emphasis on an integrated approach to health promotion, the prevention of eating issues, and supporting individual change. The challenge for EDEN is to promote body safe environments in which the danger and futility of dieting is made evident for everybody and health is not indexed to weight. EDEN’s approach rests on a commitment to working towards the creation of environments that reflect back a dynamic acceptance of body diversity and a holistic view of health and wellbeing.