HAES® – Health at Every Size®

HAES is a non-diet approach that shifts the focus away from weight and encourages behaviors that support individual health, including explicit body acceptance. It is an evidence-based philosophy that affirms everyone—regardless of body shape, size, weight or BMI—can be healthy.

According to the Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH):

“Health should be conceived as a resource or capacity available to all regardless of health condition or ability level, and not as an outcome or objective of living. Pursuing health is neither a moral imperative nor an individual obligation, and health status should never be used to judge, oppress or determine the value of an individual. The HAES approach honors the healing power of social connections, evolves in response to the experiences and needs of a diverse community, and grounds itself in a social justice framework.”

HAES® focuses on health indicators that are not weigh- or BMI-related because when there is a weight loss lens applied to one’s health goals, research shows this has a negative impact on one’s health outcomes in the long term.^{1, 2, 3, 4}

The HAES Principles

Weight Inclusivity: Accept and respect the inherent diversity of body shapes and sizes, and reject the idealizing or pathologizing of specific weights.
Health Enhancement: Support health policies that improve and equalize access to information and services, and personal practices that improve human well-being, including attention to individual physical, economic, social, spiritual, emotional and other needs.
Respectful Care: Acknowledge our biases, and work to end weight discrimination, weight stigma and weight bias. Provide information and services from an understanding that socioeconomic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, age and other identities impact weight stigma, and support environments that address these inequities.
Eating for Well-Being: Promote flexible, individualized eating based on hunger, satiety, nutritional needs and pleasure, rather than any externally regulated eating plan focused on weight control.
Life-Enhancing Movement: Support physical activities that allow people of all sizes, abilities and interests to engage in enjoyable movement, to the degree that they choose.

We’re Here for you

If you are struggling or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, we are here for you. Center for Discovery’s unique and personalized dietary program can help any individual find their way to lasting recovery.

For more information and resources, or to consult with one of our specialists, call 866.482.3876.

Bacon and Aphramor Nutrition Journal 2011. Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift. 10:9 http://www.nutritionj.com/content/10/1/9
Weight Stigma Is a Modifiable Risk Factor. Journal of Adolescent Health 63 (2018), pg. 267-268.
Parent Conversations about Healthful Eating and Weight: Associations with Adolescent Disordered Eating Behaviors. JAMA Pediatr. 2013 August 1; 167(8): 746–753. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.78.
Erin N. Harrop (2018): Typical-Atypical Interactions: One Patient’s Experience of Weight Bias in an Inpatient Eating Disorder Treatment Setting, Women & Therapy.