Preparing for fertility: What is a “healthy body”?

Take a minute to ask yourself this question: What is a healthy body to you?

Some people’s answer might be simply without any physical illness, or to have a body like the cover girl or Instagram influencer. Some might just like to be stress and depression free. The World Health Organization’s answer is this:

“A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

From a fertility point of view, we look at a more complex definition involving our physical, mental and emotional well-being. If we are in great physical shape but are struggling to deal with stress or emotional factors, it can have a negative impact on our fertility performance. Therefore, to achieve optimal reproductive health, we need to engage in methods to improve all of the above. 

Over the past 30 years popular culture has changed our society’s expectation of what a healthy body looks like. Extremely low body fat and sculpted muscular bodies are portrayed as ‘perfection’ by social media and the fitness industry, or incredibly thin bodies by the fashion industry. This distortion of reality has affected our mental and physical health. Many people who look healthy to us on the surface through this lens are actually sustaining themselves on poor quality diets, avoiding exercise or on contrary, over-exercising to achieve a particular body image. I have met many people who have had an eating disorder without being aware of it.