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Body Positivity

TW: weight, disordered eating, eating disorders

In Rachel’s experience, far too many people with thyroid disease experience body image issues. Eating disorders, disordered eating behaviour, low self-esteem, anxiety and disgust towards their body image are fairly common, as having thyroid conditions such as hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s really can affect an individual’s weight and mental health.

Rachel herself developed an eating disorder after gaining weight from her thyroid condition and obsessing about losing this weight. As a result, she made herself more unwell, overexercising and under-eating in a bid to lose weight, which made her physical health much worse.

Rachel had to put the disordered eating habits to bed and leave ‘diet culture’ behind in order to improve her mental and thyroid health.

Since this experience, Rachel has moved towards a more ‘body positive’ approach. ‘Body positivity’ promotes the idea that everyone, regardless of body shape, size, race, skin colour, abilities etc. all deserve to feel comfortable in their own skin.

Rachel does not focus on weight and weight loss as a thyroid patient advocate. Instead, she encourages thyroid patients to focus on ‘feeling healthy’ instead of focusing only on their appearance. After all, ‘skinny’ does not automatically equal ‘healthy’.

Rachel promotes the idea that focusing on feeling well by reducing thyroid symptoms and improving quality of life should take importance over obsessive dieting, as cutting calories and forcing extreme exercise often makes thyroid health worse.

Posts in this category explore these themes.

What if Weight Loss Wasn’t Your New Year’s Resolution?
Fad Diets and Intermittent Fasting Almost Cost a Hashimoto's Patient Her Life
Mental Health Awareness Week 2019, Hypothyroidism and Body Image
Focus on Feeling Healthy
Breaking the Obsession of a Smaller You
Thyroid Patients: Why You Shouldn't Focus on Your Weight
Is Dieting Making You More Hypothyroid?
Doughnuts Over Diets!
Beginning a Journey To Body Positivity

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Rachel Hill, Thyroid Patient Advocate

Rachel Hill is the highly ranked and multi-award winning thyroid patient advocate, writer, speaker and author behind The Invisible Hypothyroidism. Her thyroid advocacy work includes writing articles, authoring books, producing her Thyroid Family email newsletters and speaking on podcasts, as well as being a founding board member for the American College of Thyroidology. She is well-recognised as a crucial and influential contributor to the thyroid community and has a large social media presence. Her books include "Be Your Own Thyroid Advocate" and "You, Me and Hypothyroidism".

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Most Recent Posts

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© Rachel Gask and The Invisible Hypothyroidism, 2015-2022. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

© Rachel Gask and The Invisible Hypothyroidism, 2015-2020.

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