Changing The Conversation

In a recent Nutrisystem commercial, Marie Osmond asserts: “As women, we always talk about how we should look or what’s the best way to lose weight.”

Is this the conversation all of us are having? Are we all conspiring around this goal? And if so, what we can do to challenge it?

The truth is, it’s spot on for many of us. Some women are engaged in evolving dialogues that have nothing to do with weight or shape. But it’s sometimes challenging to get women from the first group to the second.

In a recent interview, a reporter asked me for tips on what else women can talk about if we’re to ditch fat and diet talk. My tip is, there are no tips – because the answer is infinite – if we remove fat/diet talk from our language, we get to talk about everything else.

Women have so much more to talk about than food and weight. We have jobs and families and hopes and ideas, feelings and interests and beliefs. If we remove fat and weight talk from our dialogues, we’re freed up to talk about anything else – everything else – to explore and create and connect in a deeper way, and ultimately, to be more of our authentic selves.

And shouldn’t this be the goal?