HEALing by healthy habits, hula hoops and the Holy Spirit

ARTICLE IN THE HORIZON - WESTMONT COLLEGE'S NEWSPAPER

By Karissa Young
Copy Editor

Women from UCSB, Santa Barbara City College and Westmont came together to confront eating issues and the challenges of healthy body image at a workshop called HEAL (Healthy Eating and Abundant Living) this past Saturday.

The workshop was brought to Westmont by HEART, the Healthy Eating Awareness Resource Team, led by Debbie Ulrick, as an extension of the “Be Comfortable in Your Genes” Focus Week, which “was really about raising awareness about these issues [while] HEAL was about presenting a solution,” said sophomore Rachel Stroud who works with HEART.

The HEAL program was created by Allie Smith, founder of Wonderfully Made, a women’s ministry with three chapters on different college campuses. The aim of the program is to “bring God into our relationship with food” in order to rise above disordered eating and refocus on a relationship with God, said Smith.

The workshop included practical advice for relating healthfully to food, as well as activities that varied from reflective journaling to playing with hula hoops. The hula hoops were used to remind the women of the joy that they can take in being able to use their bodies to move, instead of reacting negatively to the way they were made.

“One point that really hit home for me was the idea of eating when you’re actually hungry and stopping when you’re satisfied … it’s how we were made. It really made me realize that I need to step back and figure out what hungry and satisfied feels like for me.” said first-year Kelsey Brownsberger of HEART.

Smith’s book Healthy Eating and Abundant Living: Your Diet-free, Faith-filled Guide to a Fabulous Life is a six-week study based on the HEAL workshop and will be released in December 2008.