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There is a lot of bad diet advice out there, and while it’s easy to blame diets, at the root, bad diet advice is not the problem. The problem is our need for diets. A problem stemming from generational beliefs about health that have created the idea that your body is the problem.
I’m certainly not attempting to put everyone in the same box. But regardless of where you fall, understanding generational beliefs, challenges, or trauma is worth talking about. We all have them, regardless of our environment.
While parents and grandparents are the main culprits of these beliefs, the culture and environment of our childhoods also play a defining role. For many of us, there was no escaping the health storyline the media portrayed. Historically, these health beliefs have spanned everything from magazines to TV and magazine ads (even for kids).
The confusing and mixed messages of the dieting era:
Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, I was exposed to an entirely different set of beliefs than culture portrays now. The same would be true of our grandparents generation. There was always a belief about health, but that belief has shifted throughout the generations, bringing a world of confusion.
Currently, we exist in a tangled mess of two very large extremes—the beliefs created at the peak of diet culture in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s that skinny was in and how you looked determined your worth to the 2000s when health shifted to body awareness, and strong was the new skinny.
I’m not saying what message is true or if any are, but rather proving that regardless, we’ve all been shaped by these cultural ideas. There is no escaping them. If you fail to change them, they will become your beliefs.
In this podcast, I discuss generational beliefs about health and the trauma they have caused. I also show you how to let go of these unhealthy beliefs and establish new (and true) beliefs that will change your health and your health legacy.
GENERATIONAL BELIEFS (AND the trauma they can cause)
Beliefs are the foundational component of your human existence. They are the grounding force, the foundation on which you build your life. Beliefs shape your life, define and direct it.
Unfortunately, we’re not always responsible for our beliefs or even aware of what we believe. Psychologists have determined that most people’s core beliefs are formed by age seven. Core beliefs fall into three categories: beliefs about yourself, beliefs about other people, and beliefs about the world.
Considering these are defined at such a young age, you can presume most of them were not your beliefs but beliefs handed to you. Most of them are a representation of what the key influencers in your life believed and instilled upon you, most of which came from their core beliefs instilled by their key influencers.
It’s the power of generational beliefs.
Generational beliefs are the cyclical nature of how most beliefs get passed down from generation to generation without being challenged or questioned but just accepted. It’s the same process that happens when generational trauma is passed down. Trauma acts on one’s belief system, altering it and thus altering the stories they share.
In regard to health, this presents many problems not because the process of passing down beliefs is wrong (it’s God-given) but because of what beliefs have been repeated. In most cases, those beliefs revolve around the body being ‘bad.’
Bad Health Beliefs
I bring this up not to scare you but to empower you. I want to help you understand your beliefs, those you might even be attempting to mask, not to enable or empower them but to empower you to change them.
Just because you have believed something doesn’t mean it has to continue. It takes work, but there is great power in learning how to shift your beliefs, not just for you but for future generations. This is the power of generational legacy.
As mentioned, health beliefs historically have been in defense of diets and against your body. Looking back, even in the past decade, you can see how the health space has shifted its message but continued to persist in the same underlying belief – that your body is a problem.
Regardless of the desired outcome, this message has led a world of people to engage in health in all the wrong ways and often for the wrong reasons—reasons that don’t elicit change.
To change and make it last, you must be willing to confront what you believe. It might be easiest to start with what you saw your parents and grandparents believe.
- What did they say about health, their bodies, and the food that they ate?
- What did the media portray as healthy?
- What was the story being told about health?
Take some time to ask yourself these questions. Make a note of it. You may be surprised to find how much of this old story you continue to live out even though you don’t want to.
That’s the problem with beliefs, unless you change them you’ll live out of them no matter how much you hate them. It’s similar to the belief that brushing your teeth will keep your teeth healthy. While true, I don’t love the belief. I dislike brushing my teeth, but I do it because I ‘believe’ it’s necessary.
That’s the thing: you don’t always have to “like’ the act. But the act comes out of the belief. You will do it if you believe it because you trust the outcome. You trust the results will come.
That might be a cheesy example, but it’s important to note that you don’t have to hate it to be healthy, yet you might hate some healthy things. The point isn’t your emotion behind it but finding truth within it.
If a belief is untrue, you have to release it so you can believe something new.
The process of building a belief.
Your body only believes what it thinks is true.
One critical point to note regarding your mind, body, and soul is that it only accepts what it believes is true. What you believe has to have a decent amount of supporting evidence to stand as truth. Supporting evidence backs up the claim, helping to solidify the belief.
To change your beliefs, you must change the supporting evidence you give to that truth. This presents the opposing problem; you’ve given many untrue things enough supporting evidence to become a belief.
Take the belief that your body is bad. We know this is both untrue and unhealthy. But when you can compile enough supporting evidence for this idea, you will begin to believe it because that’s what feels most true.
Supporting evidence for this belief that your body is bad could be:
- The words your mom spoke over her body that you believed about your body.
- The boy who called you ‘thunder thighs’ in third grade.
- The “research” the media portrays about your body.
- The symptoms you experience.
Numerous things must work together to create a foundation to build that belief. If you want to change your beliefs, you have to begin the work of dismantling this foundation. You must tear down what is untrue so that belief no longer has a place to stand.
As soon as your body, mind, and soul see the untruth, you will free it from your life.
It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.
The power of unlearning makes health simple.
I make this all sound easier than it is. It will require work and you to see outside the box. It requires you to push against the norm, and that is scary. If you’re not careful, it can act on your survival response, pushing you back into the same pit, if not further into your old beliefs. That’s why you must come at this from a place of love.
You must come from a place of understanding, curiosity, and a new way of thinking—no bashing, shaming, or fighting. What matters most is that you come with an open mind. You come from a place of love, allowing you to release what isn’t true and accept what is.
The process of unlearning is one of the most powerful positions in health.
No one talks about the work of unlearning in health, eliminating the generational beliefs you’ve inherited. However, for many people, this is the most powerful and potentially life-changing part of this work.
Like all things, eventually, what you believe becomes your story.
You are the master of your story. Be careful what you allow to create it.
Take some time to understand your beliefs. You might be surprised to see everything you thought was true was just close enough to the truth to be believable but far enough away to keep you stuck wishing for health but not living it.
Inside Health Made Simple, I help you establish a new belief about health while dismantling the old one. When you shift your beliefs and perspective of health, you change how your body responds—it makes health simple.
The power of establishing foundational beliefs that are fully yours is to create a new lens and a healthier filter through which you process life.
There is something better. If you start living it, you will pass it on to the next generation, which is the best gift you can give. The legacy you leave results from the beliefs that build your story. What story will you pass on?
If you believe anything less than understanding health is inside of you, go back and start to challenge the beliefs holding you back. Changing your beliefs changes your story and patterns, and this makes health simple.
Get started changing your beliefs and understanding health in a new way inside Health Made Simple. Learn more here.
More resources you’ll love:
If you want to learn more about dieting and how to heal your body, here are a few resources we think you’ll like:
- Bad Diet Advice Really Isn’t About the Diet (It’s About You)
- 7 Truths About Losing Body Fat You Haven’t Heard
- How To Lose Weight (The Healthy Way)
- 12 Ways To Make Health Simple
- How to Feel More Energized — And Stop Storying Body Fat
