You hear it often, “America is the leading country in obesity. Go to the gym and exercise!” Even from a young age, kids are pushed by their parents into diet programs, fat camps, etc. In our raging attempt to fight for our country’s physical health, we’ve completely disregarded the mental health that can be damaged in this chase. We’ve begun to fear food and idolize the human body.

I used to see pictures of girls with six-packs, usually with a link under them that says something like “5 Tips On Staying Fit And Healthy” and think, “Gosh, I wish I looked like that.” But now it just makes me tired. In some ways, it makes me tired cause of the amount of gym-time it must take to obtain/maintain that body, but it makes me tired in a bigger sense too. It seems mind-numbingly exhausting to keep up with that image all the time. When you define yourself by your body, you have to maintain it or else you lose your whole sense of identity. Eating a simple slice of pizza can put you in a moral dilemma. How sad is that? How tiring is that?

I know from personal experience that food can be turned into an object of fear:

“Portion control!”

“Cut the carbs!”

“The trick to a flat belly begins in the kitchen!”

“You only need 1,500 calories a day!”

After a while every time your tummy rumbles you break into a panic. “Oh, no! I’m hungry and it’s four hours until my next meal. I’m such a failure!” Think back to being a child. Did you ever fear hunger? Or did you just eat when you were hungry?

Somehow in today’s society, we’ve begun to value physical health over mental health. It's such a dangerous place to be. Here’s the real trick to a “healthy body.” If you’re in a good place mentally, then odds are (unless you have a pre-existing medical condition) you will be in a good place physically. But if you make physical looks and “health” your goal, then your mental health will most likely be challenged.

So many times we can look at a “healthy” person and think he/she has it all under control, but a “healthy lifestyle” can hit an unhealthy point where it becomes an eating disorder. When we hear “eating disorder” often our minds go straight to anorexia or bulimia, but excessive exercise is classified as an eating disorder. There is also a new eating disorder (still in the process of being recognized clinically) recently coined as Orthorexia. Orthorexia is defined by the National Eating Disorder Association as, “an ‘unhealthy obsession’ with otherwise healthy eating.” It starts as an attempt to live a healthy lifestyle but becomes an obsession until certain foods are completely eliminated from an individual’s diet. In other words, these eating disorders start when someone finds their identity in their food or their fitness regimen.

So where does that leave us? Do we ignore health and continue to be an obese country? I think there’s a balance. Yes, physical health is important, no one can deny that, but it is not the most important thing. If you begin to find your identity in what you look like, how many calories you consume a day, how much time you spend in the gym, you begin to deteriorate as a human. You can’t keep up with it. You can’t be in your dream body forever, it just doesn’t make sense and then where does that leave you?

When it comes to health, I think it’s best to live by what I call the “European way” (no, it’s not a new diet so don’t get excited). When you’re hungry, eat what you’re hungry for. Stop eating when you’re full. Eat with other people if you can. Find pleasure in your food but not your identity in it. Stop fearing food…you need it.