happiness doesn't depend on your weight, says gillian mandich, happiness expert

gillian mandich is a happiness expert, researcher and public speaker in toronto who wants to help people identify what makes them happy and develop their “happiness muscle” so they can smile more often. turns out, happiness likely has little to do with notions about ideal weight and numbers on the scale. here are some of her tips on happiness and health.

how do you define happiness?

mandich: what’s interesting is that if i was to go out on the streets of toronto right now and poll a hundred people and ask them for the definition of happiness, i would probably get a hundred different definitions. and yet when we use the word, we all know what we’re talking about. it’s kind of like when we define emotions, a lot of it is very subjective as well. the definition that i use, which is one that is commonly cited in the literature, comes from dr. sonja lyubomirsky, a happiness researcher from california. it’s the experience of joy, contentment and positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful and worthwhile. the reason i like that definition is because it has two pieces: it’s how you’re feeling in the moment and the longevity-plus-purpose piece. it’s like a narrower zoom and then a bigger picture wider zoom.

when we are happier, we tend to make better choices in terms of nutrition, sleep and physical activity. getty

how did we as a society get to the point where we equate happiness with weight?

m.: i think most people would think that weight and happiness are correlated. but what’s interesting is that we don’t quite see that in the data. there’s data out of indonesia, for example, where increased weight is correlated with increased happiness because in terms of socioeconomic status, the country’s is very low. there is status to be able to afford food, to eat and to gain weight.

do you believe there is a link between weight and happiness?

m.: there can be but not necessarily. it isn’t a given like a equals b. anecdotally, among research participants that i’ve worked with, we see that people at every weight often or can also struggle with their happiness. so it isn’t necessarily the case that people who are thin or average weight are happier than people who are living with obesity. a lot of it comes down to looking at in terms of our capacity for happiness. there are three main influences on our happiness — your genetics, your environment, and then your thoughts, actions and behaviours.

what about health and happiness?

m.: i used to research childhood obesity where i was using bmi (body mass index), which is calculated with height and weight to determine inclusion in my research. i kept thinking that i’m using height and weight to determine if a child can be a participant in my study, but there’s got to be something else out there. it isn’t a number on a scale that can help to promote health. that’s how i came across happiness research. i started reading this literature about how when we’re happier, we tend to be healthier as well. we tend to make better health choices in terms of nutrition, in terms of sleep, physical activity, and in terms of social connections and even our thought patterns.

“one of the main ingredients [in the recipe for happiness] is to give ourselves grace to feel the full spectrum of human emotion and to know that we can’t be happy all the time,” says happiness expert gillian mandich. supplied

if you could pass on a recipe for happiness, what would it be?

m.: as soon as i tell somebody i’m a happiness researcher, the number one question i get asked is, ‘what’s the magic pill? what’s the one thing i need to do or buy or get or say in order to be happy?’ there’s no magic pill. i can’t tell somebody how to be happy. we have to figure it out for ourselves. also, it’s not just like we figured out a formula and then we’re done.

any other ideas as to how to create more happiness in our lives?

m.: harvard has a study called the harvard study of adult development . it’s the longest running study in the space. basically, they started following participants when they were 18, either harvard students or other students, and then they added a second group of non-university students. they’ve followed them so long that they’re dying now. they found that the number one predictor of both our long-term health and our happiness is social connection. so above how much money we have, above our income, our gender, above our race, above where we live, above our education level — above any of those things — the number one thing is social connections. so that’s a really important thing to realize: how important connection is to us as humans, because we get busy. the phone call to a friend, the going out for a coffee or for dinner are things that can fall off our to-do list when we get really busy.

your takeaway message?

m.: happiness is like a muscle. like you go to the gym and you lift weight and over time you get stronger. that’s what happens with happiness, too. if you do things every single day that make you happy, over time it’s like your happiness muscle has grown. what we want to do is think throughout the day, ‘where are opportunities that i can create small bursts of happiness?’ because when you start to add them up cumulatively, that’s actually what adds up to a happy life.