Peaceful Mind, Peaceful Body, Peaceful World

Developing a peaceful approach to health and wellness…

You deserve to feel peaceful and safe in your body.

The Healthy Living Program is not a weight management program, but a well-being program, intended to support the development of safe, healthy, person-centered habits.

There is a substantial and growing body of research related to health promotion that strongly supports the importance of reducing emphasis on body size and increasing emphasis on the development of healthy habits. It is well-documented that health issues are related to an array of other factors beyond body weight, including but not limited to genetics, life experiences including trauma, mental health or substance use issues, chronic pain, disabilities, economic limitations, systemic injustice and inequality, and many others. 

The Healthy Living Program and other organizations seek to provide equitable access and support to folks in developing habits that can alleviate some of those underlying issues and thus improve one’s overall health – without contributing to weight stigma and harm.

For these reasons, the Healthy Living Program is committed to aligning with the following trauma-informed, person-centered, social justice-oriented approaches to health, wellness, and healthcare:

• Health at Every Size
• Healthcare as a social justice issue: see multiple research papers here
• Intuitive Eating
• Association for Size Diversity and Health

As community health providers, the Healthy Living Program is invested in the advancement of equitable healthcare for all people.  What does this mean? 

• Respecting and honoring the diversity of body types, abilities, genders, and backgrounds.  This means supporting and implementing policies that create a more just, equitable healthcare system and world. 
• Co-creating and actively maintaining a community that feels safe, welcoming, and accessible to all participants.
• Actively seeking to unlearn healthcare-related messages and myths that have perpetuated harm against Black, Indigenous, and other people of color in this country and around the world. 
• Taking comprehensive looks at the underlying causes of disease in underserved populations and being willing to ask the hard questions. 
• Always aiming to make our approaches, services, and programming equitable and accessible to all community members. 
• Being always willing to learn, change, and grow.  

True health is not possible in the face of oppression.  To support health, we must support the dismantling and rebuilding of systems that prevent it. 

In Conversation: Health Equity in Arlington