Health and Beauty?

Health and beauty: Is it a good pairing?

We can do better.

Before I make my case, let’s get crystal clear about what’s meant by “beauty” in the health-and-beauty paradigm. In this context, “beauty” refers to products and services designed to make you look “better” than you naturally look.

The powerful implication behind “beauty” products and services is that you don’t look good enough as you are.

The way you are isn’t good enough.

Let that sink in.

If you accept this notion, and you also want to be happy and healthy, you’re in a gnarly double bind. Self-acceptance is required for wellness. You can’t reject yourself and thrive.

Each and every time you apply Aveno’s Absolutely Ageless to “reduce the look of fine lines” or apply Just for Men’s Touch of Grey for “more pepper, less salt”, you’re giving yourself a clear message: I don’t like you the way you are.

You’re engaged in a game of you against you—one of the nastiest aspects of hell.

In her brilliant TED talk Dare to Question Why We Are So Afraid of Getting Older, Scilla Elworthy taunts the marketing of “beauty” products and services:

“Every day, Western media bombards us with encouragement to make ourselves look younger, ‘because you’re worth it’.”

Elworthy goes on to eloquently and passionately break down what’s going on:

“So, what’s it about, this obsession with looking younger? Is it, at base, a fear of death? I wonder if it’s not more to do with an emptiness inside that puts all the emphasis on what we look like outside. An obsession with image. With how we perform. With what we appear to be. That’s masking something. And I’m fed up with it. I’ve had enough of it. I’m fed up with it because it’s robbing us of who we really are. It’s robbing us of our sense of self. It’s robbing us of our wisdom. It’s robbing us of our usefulness. I think it’s cheating us of the real contribution we can make to the world right now.”

Like all great thinkers, Elworthy doesn’t stop at identifying the problem; she goes on to identify the solution, and does so deftly:

“I don’t think there is anything more useful that any of us can do than learn to love ourselves.”

Making this practical, let me introduce you to a new paradigm: wellness and self-acceptance.

Within this paradigm, we make efforts to optimize our well-being and we simultaneously give ourselves the ongoing, truly beautiful gift of self-acceptance. Naturally, our self-acceptance includes accepting our bodies. We accept the bodies we were born into, and we accept our bodies as we age.

We value our bodies not merely for how they look, but for the true wonders they are. Our eyes see a glorious spectrum of colors and textures. Our ears hear laughter and music and ocean waves. Our skin feels warm breezes and the held hand of a close one. We walk and dance and eat and rest and sleep—with our bodies. I could go on and on and on about the true wonders of our bodies. I invite you to reflect on what your body truly is for you. I invite you to fall in love with your body.

We value ourselves not merely for how we look, but for the true wonders we are. The lives we touch through our work. The lives we touch through our relationships. The adventures we partake in. This wisdom we contain. And so much more. I invite you to reflect on who you truly are. I invite you to fall in love with yourself.

When people take the time and energy that goes into constituting and maintaining an image and channel it in other ways, they often find a wellspring of mojo they never knew existed.

I invite you to reflect on your untapped grandeur.

If you could set aside your concern for your image:

1. What else could you experience?
2. What else could you bring to people through your work?
3. What else could you bring to people through your relationships?

Imagine your life as one of tremendous well-being—from the inside out. Imagine feeling that good. That free to be yourself. That’s what’s possible for you when you unsubscribe from health and beauty and subscribe to wellness and self-acceptance.

As for our world, what would be possible if more and more of us ditched health and beauty in favor of wellness and self-acceptance?

The possibilities are endless.

For a sense of the magnitude of what we could do, I’ll hand the mic back to Elworthy:

“Do you know how much the world spends on anti-aging products today? That’s anti-wrinkle creams, botox, liposuction, hair transplants, facelifts, the lot. Two hundred and seventy-four billion dollars a year. With that money, we could eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, we could enable people worldwide to have access to clean water, and we could stop children dying in pain and squalor. And still have 49 billion left over.”

Drop the mic, Scilla!

About Jason Gootman
Jason Gootman is a Mayo Clinic Certified Wellness Coach and National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach as well as a certified nutritionist and certified exercise physiologist. Jason helps people reverse and prevent type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other ailments with evidence-based approaches to nutrition, exercise, stress reduction, holistic wellness, and, most importantly, lasting behavior improvement and positive habit formation. As part of this work, Jason often helps people lose weight and keep it off, in part by helping them overcome the common challenges of yo-yo dieting and emotional eating. Jason helps people go from knowing what to do and having good intentions to consistently taking great care of themselves in ways that help them add years to their lives and life to their years.