What HAES Actually Means and Why Your Therapist Should Care
Rethinking Health When Diet Culture Is Everywhere
Diet talk is everywhere. Maybe you have cycled through meal plans, apps, and programs, only to end up feeling like you failed. Maybe your doctor praises you when your weight drops during a stressful time or scolds you when it goes up, without asking what is really going on. Maybe even in therapy you have heard that your depression or anxiety would improve if you could just lose weight.
Health at Every Size, or HAES, offers a different way to think about health. It is not a trend that says health does not matter, and it is not a catchy hashtag meant to ignore medical concerns. HAES is a weight-inclusive, research-informed framework that challenges diet culture and invites us to care for our bodies without making weight loss the measure of success.
At Modern Eve Therapy in Utah, we approach counseling through an anti-diet, body-liberation lens that is aligned with HAES, and we pair that with affirming care for LGBTQIA+ clients and people moving through faith transitions. That context matters, because messages about bodies, worthiness, and food often come from families, religious communities, and cultural norms. In this article, we will break down what HAES actually means, what it is not, how a HAES therapist works with clients, why your therapist’s beliefs about weight affect your healing, and how to tell if a therapist truly gets it.
What HAES Really Means Beyond the Hashtag
HAES is a framework that challenges the idea that smaller bodies are automatically healthier or more worthy. At its core, it includes a few key principles that we translate into everyday language in the therapy room.
Weight inclusivity means respecting body diversity instead of treating higher weight as a personal failure. A HAES approach recognizes that bodies naturally come in many shapes and sizes, and that health cannot be accurately measured by weight alone.
Eating for well-being focuses on connection and care, not punishment. Instead of rigid rules, HAES supports attunement to hunger, fullness, satisfaction, and emotional needs. Food becomes one part of caring for yourself, not a moral test you pass or fail.
Joyful movement is about finding ways of moving that feel supportive, accessible, and meaningful, whether that is walking, dancing, stretching, or resting when your body needs it. Exercise stops being a way to earn food or shrink your body, and becomes one option for feeling more at home in yourself.
HAES also asks us to challenge weight stigma in systems. That includes medical settings, schools, workplaces, religious communities, and even therapy offices where people in larger bodies are often treated as problems to fix rather than people who deserve respectful care.
HAES is informed by research and rooted in fat activism and disability justice movements. It is not a feel-good excuse to ignore health concerns, and it is not claiming that everyone is automatically healthy. Instead, it says that everyone deserves respectful, evidence-informed care, no matter their size, and that health behaviors can be supported at any weight.
Common myths about HAES include ideas like:
It is anti-health
It promotes obesity
It says weight never matters
It ignores medical conditions
In reality, HAES shifts the focus from weight loss as the main goal to sustainable, compassionate health behaviors. It asks, how can we support your well-being without making weight the requirement for care or respect?
How a HAES Therapist Actually Works with You
So what does a HAES therapist actually do differently in session? First, they do not prescribe intentional weight loss as a treatment plan. They do not collude with body hatred, even if your inner critic is loud and convincing. A HAES therapist is also actively unlearning their own weight bias and diet culture conditioning, instead of pretending to be a neutral observer.
Sessions with a HAES therapist may include:
Exploring your relationship with food, movement, and your body over time
Naming diet culture messages from family, media, faith communities, and healthcare providers
Unpacking experiences of medical trauma or religious trauma related to weight or appearance
Finding new ways to cope that do not center self-punishment
At Modern Eve Therapy, we weave this approach through our work with eating disorders, body image concerns, trauma, faith transitions, and LGBTQIA+ experiences. For clients who grew up in conservative or high-demand religious spaces, food and bodies are often tied to morality and worth. For queer and trans clients, body autonomy and safety can be deeply connected to identity. A HAES lens helps us honor those intersections instead of treating weight as a side note.
If you are in a larger body, safety in the therapy room includes very specific things. There are no weigh-ins used as progress markers. There is no casual “but have you tried losing weight” in response to pain, distress, or shame. There is no shaming of coping tools like emotional eating. Instead, we look at what those tools are doing for you and work toward adding gentler options, without ripping away the ones that helped you survive.
Why Your Therapist’s Weight Beliefs Affect Your Healing
A therapist’s unexamined fatphobia or diet mentality can quietly derail therapy, even when the intention is to help. When a therapist believes thinness is better or healthier, that belief sneaks into the work.
This can look like:
Praising weight loss in the middle of trauma work, even if it came from not eating
Suggesting dieting as the first step for managing anxiety or depression
Siding with a partner or parent who polices your food or comments on your body
Minimizing harassment or discrimination based on your size
When this happens, therapy can turn into yet another place where you are told that your body is the problem. Shame gets reinforced, systemic oppression is ignored, and you may feel pressured to perform a “better” body to earn care.
For people who are LGBTQIA+, people leaving or questioning their faith community, or anyone who has been told their body is tied to their spiritual worth, this harm can cut especially deep. There may already be layers of shame about sexuality, gender, modesty, and self-discipline. Adding weight stigma on top of that can make it feel unsafe to be honest in therapy.
For many people recovering from eating disorders, religious trauma, or both, having a HAES therapist is not an optional extra. It is central to healing. If your therapist is quietly hoping you will lose weight, or treats that as a sign of progress, it can be very hard to trust that your body is truly welcome in the room.
How to Tell If a Therapist Is Truly HAES-Aligned
Finding a therapist who actually practices from a HAES perspective can take some effort, especially in places where diet culture and religious messages about bodies are strong. A good starting point is asking direct questions in a consult or first session.
You might ask:
How do you understand the relationship between weight and health?
Do you ever prescribe or encourage intentional weight loss as part of therapy?
Are you familiar with HAES and anti-diet work, and how does that show up in your practice?
How do you address weight stigma and bias in your work with clients?
Red flags can include someone using HAES or body-positive language in their marketing, but then focusing heavily on BMI, “healthy weight ranges,” or “lifestyle changes” that are really diets in disguise. If you hear comments that equate smaller bodies with better character, more discipline, or more deserving of love, that is important information.
Green flags might include clear statements about being a HAES therapist, anti-diet or fat-positive language on their site, and explicit acknowledgment that weight stigma is harmful. Experience with eating disorders, trauma, and identity-based oppression often means the therapist has thought about how these issues interact with food and bodies.
You are allowed to advocate for yourself. It is okay to clarify that you do not want weight loss as a goal in therapy. It is okay to change therapists if you feel shamed or dismissed. In Utah, where diet programs, fitness fads, and religious expectations can be tightly woven together, this kind of self-advocacy can be especially important.
Choosing Care That Honors Your Whole Self
Healing is harder when therapy quietly sides with diet culture. It is easier, or at least more honest, when your therapist understands HAES and practices from that perspective. When weight is not the yardstick, there is more room to focus on what actually hurts, what you care about, and how you want to live.
You might think back on times you felt dismissed or shamed about your body or eating, whether in a doctor’s office, a church hallway, or a therapy session. Then ask yourself how it would feel to sit with a HAES therapist who sees your body as worthy of care exactly as it is, who believes you deserve respect before any behavior changes, and who is willing to challenge weight stigma alongside you.
At Modern Eve Therapy, we are committed to anti-diet, HAES-aligned, queer-affirming care that can hold eating concerns, trauma, faith shifts, and identity without asking you to shrink yourself first. Your body is not the problem to fix. You deserve support that honors your whole self.
Take A Compassionate Step Toward Food and Body Healing Today
At Modern Eve Therapy, we know how easily spring’s social rhythms can stir up confusion about what your body is asking for. If you’re feeling stuck between your own signals and outside pressure to look or behave a certain way, you’re not alone. We offer support that centers your needs and respects the work you’ve already done to care for yourself. To see how body image counseling in Utah can help, reach out when you’re ready to reconnect with what feels true.