Wellness

I have a wonderful Wellness program at work.  This allows me access to all three gyms on the university campus, two pools and a variety of workout classes, everything from spinning and Zumba to yoga and tai chi.  They have cooking classes and workshops on topics such as aging parents, diabetes, blood pressure screenings and the like.

Most pertinent to me is access to a nutritional counselor.  When I first started in recovery, I was only seeing my therapist who gave me some points about eating to ensure I was returning to normal and healthy patterns.  My therapist is not a nutritionist and it's a piece of the recovery puzzle that was missing for a while.  Seeing a nutritionist or dietician in addition to therapy and working was very overwhelming logistically, let alone emotionally.  I avoided it for these convenience reasons until my Wellness program hired a nutritionist specializing in eating disorders.  This person would be available on campus where I work for counseling.

The access to this person was a no brainer and I made an appointment right away.  I've been seeing the nutritionist for a about a year and it has been a crucially important component in my recovery.

Recently, my wellness program at work announced their 25th anniversary.  They invited stories from the university community demonstrating how the wellness program has contributed to their health.  I knew I wanted to share my story of how an accessible nutritionist turned my recovery around for the better.  So I did and was given a free pair of university wellness socks as a reward.

The program has been featuring these stories on their site.  Curious about others' stories (and to see if they decided to feature mine), I check out the site every once in a while.  I always leave disappointed.

Why?  Because every single story is about either losing weight or working out.  These things can contribute to a person's wellness, absolutely.  But we're once again taking a term to describe an overall state of health to mean dieting and exercise to "shape up".

I'm annoyed because I really believe in wellness as a concept.  I believe in keeping myself healthy through my food and exercise, yes of course.  But for me, that means eating more and exercising less than I am used to - a story no one wants to hear because, after all, why would eating more and working out less be healthy?!  We're trained to correlate these things to being obese, lazy and other terms with negative connotations.  Eating less and losing weight are badges of honor in our society and are staining the wellness idea.

Wellness is different for everyone and that is what disappoints me.  For some, it means not changing their eating or exercising but meditating more.  Or working less, taking an iPhone break for a day (!) or spending time volunteering to better the community.

What is worse:  our media is capitalizing on this.  Terms like "health" and "fitness" (which are even titles of some magazines) have been skewed into meaning dieting, working out and looking a certain way.  It's hard to even say "I'm getting healthy" without someone thinking of dropping pounds and doing hours in the gym.  Is "wellness" going in the same direction?  I'm already seeing the term "wellness" pop up in places I'd rather not see it.  Why do we need another term for what these things really are anyways?  Oh that's right:  to sell magazines.  To sell diet plans and make people feel like shit when they fail at wellness, so they are desperate to try something else.  I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound very well to me.

What does Wellness mean to you?  Is it shaping up to have six pack abs?  Or is it taking a walk in the woods at the "smell the roses" pace?  Or taking a nap on a Saturday.  Or, yes, running that marathon and finding your healthy weight range through sound practices.  Or whatever.  And maybe wellness sometimes means avoiding the term altogether and just living by what makes us feel good.  It's too bad these stories aren't sexy enough for the magazines or wellness programs because that is really what wellness means.