Are Hyper-Palatable Foods Wreaking Havoc on Your Health & Making You Gain Weight? Part 1

Rhyena Halpern
5 min readNov 10, 2020

How to Free Yourself from Old Body Tapes

Photo by Ashley Green on Unsplash

If you are carrying weight on your body that feels extra, and perhaps struggle a little or a lot with disordered eating, you probably know the story:

Despite our rejection of the oppressive societal norms perpetuated by the ‘beauty’ industry;

Despite our philosophical support of the fat liberation movement and our acceptance of our larger, different-from-the-norm-size;

Despite the distorted mental tapes we internalize and carry about how women (and men) should ‘look’;

Despite the valid, angsty emotions that drive the overeating (that we now know could be bad, gut microbes causing cravings);

Despite the genetic predisposition towards gaining and holding onto excess fat along with blood sugar regulation problems that many of us have;

Despite knowing that many skinny people are actually unhealthy and many thicker people indeed are very healthy;

Despite multi-generational familial dysfunctional habits behind overeating;

Despite all of this, we can feel that place of truth inside us that letting go of excess weight is part of our life’s lessons. We are not trying to be tiny or look like Barbie. We have moved way past that. We can be healthy and the right weight for ourselves, even if the BMI and weight recommendations disagree.

We yearn to be healthy and free- mentally and physically. We don’t want to carry the shame or guilt or any self-denigration.

Nor do we want to carry extra inflammation, which we know leads to disease. We are searching for and finding our own personalized optimal health. We are not prescribing yours. We want to reach for our own internal freedom from the tyranny of food, weight, eating.

And we want the patriarchy and avaricious corporations that would hurt our bodies in the quest for higher profits off our backs.

We know that the biggest, most cynical, conniving culprit behind excess weight is the maniacal food industry’s affair with processed foods designed with enough sugar, salt and fat…

Rhyena Halpern

End of Life Doula who loves to write on Death & Dying, Third Act/Retirement, Wellness, Healing & Trauma, Sexuality/Romance/Aging. rhyhalpern@gmail.com