Amanda Bos - Food Freedom Coach

This morning I had the privilege of taking part in Lifeline’s Out of the Shadows Walk here in Coffs Harbour 💙🩵💙

It was such a beautiful and meaningful morning walking alongside people from all walks of life, coming together to remember those we’ve lost, support those who are struggling, and remind each other that no one has to face the darkness alone.

There was something incredibly powerful about seeing so many people walking together, some carrying their own stories, some walking in memory of someone they love, and others simply showing their support.

Su***de and mental health can be difficult conversations, but events like this help bring them out of the shadows and into the light. They remind us of the importance of checking in, listening without judgement, reaching out and letting people know they matter 🩵🤍🩵

A morning filled with reflection, connection, hope and a few very important conversations.

You never know what someone is quietly carrying. Be kind. Check in. Keep the conversation going. 🫶🏼

***dePrevention

Rest is essential for overall well-being and can be more beneficial than continuous productivity. Rest rejuvenates your energy, clears your mind, and helps you perform better in the long run. Taking time to recharge is vital for both physical and mental health.


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If your definition of success always ends with a smaller body, ask yourself: Are you promoting health, or just reinforcing thinness as the ideal? The goal of fitness should be to help people live more, not weigh less. Maybe it's time we stopped asking, "How much weight have you lost?" and started asking, "How much has your life improved?"


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Age is inevitable. Becoming comfortable in your own skin is the real achievement. Joy, self-respect, and a life well lived will always outshine the pursuit of looking younger.


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We do not need more selfless women. What we need right now is more women who have detoxed themselves so completely from the world’s expectations that they are full of nothing but themselves.
~ Glennon Doyle.

Health is about far more than food and exercise. It also includes getting adequate sleep, nurturing meaningful relationships, managing stress, limiting harmful substances, attending regular health check-ups, taking prescribed medications, and having a sense of connection and community.

If our goal is genuine wellbeing, then health behaviours should be pursued for the benefits they bring to our physical, mental, and emotional health, not as a means of changing our appearance.

In fact, health behaviours do not have a particular aesthetic outcome. They can support wellbeing across a wide range of body shapes and sizes. Health is reflected in how a body functions and feels, not simply in how it looks.

Food is one of life's great pleasures, but when it becomes our only reliable source of comfort, joy, or reward, it can end up carrying a burden it was never meant to bear.

Diet culture loves to divide food into categories: "good" and "bad," or, in a more sophisticated disguise, "green" foods and "red" foods. Green foods are encouraged; red foods are to be limited. But let's be honest, the message is the same. We all know which foods are being labelled as "good" and which are being labelled as "bad."

The problem with assigning moral value to food is that it often leads us to assign moral value to ourselves.

When we eat a "bad" food, we may experience guilt. Guilt says, "I did something bad." Left unchecked, guilt can quickly turn into shame, which says, "I am bad."

The internal dialogue can sound something like this:

"I ate something bad. I did something bad. I am bad."

And just like that, a simple eating experience becomes tangled up with our self-worth.

When food is moralised, eating becomes more than nourishment or pleasure—it becomes a measure of character. The result is often a cycle of guilt, shame, self-criticism, and, for many people, the very behaviours they are trying to avoid, such as emotional eating, binge eating, or chronic dieting.

As researcher and author Brené Brown has noted, shame is strongly associated with a range of mental health challenges, including addiction, depression, eating disorders, and suicidality. Shame rarely inspires lasting change; more often, it undermines wellbeing.

What if, instead, we viewed food through a morally neutral lens?

Some foods may be more nutrient-dense. Some may be less filling. Some may provide comfort, pleasure, tradition, or connection. But food itself is not good or bad, and neither are you for eating it.

When we remove moral labels from food, we put it back in its rightful place: as one part of a healthy, balanced life rather than a measure of our worth. In doing so, we make room for greater self-compassion, a healthier relationship with eating, and a more sustainable path to wellbeing.

Health and vitality come in all shapes and sizes because bodies are not meant to look the same. Just as we differ in height, shoe size, personality, and genetics, we also differ in the weight and shape at which our bodies function best. Chasing thinness at any cost often asks us to ignore our biology, while pursuing health allows us to work with our bodies rather than against them.