The Underpants Rule is simple:

Everyone is the boss of their own underpants,
So
You get to choose for you,
and
Other people get to choose for them,
and
It’s not your job to tell other people what to do,
and
It's not their job to tell you what to do.

Regan Chastain, of Dances With Fat, created and often talks about the Underpants Rule. I totally AGREE with this rule, and try to adopt it as my own.  She talks more about the specifics of that Rule as follows: 

          If someone is considering saying something that starts with any of these words...

• People should
• Everyone ought to
• What people need to do
• We should all
• Nobody should
• You shouldn't blah blah - things that have to do with underpants that aren't yours - blah blah

then there is a 99.9% chance that they are about to break The Underpants Rule.

The only “exception” to this for me is about Civil Rights because they are not to be voted on or conferred, they just are, therefore everybody needs to respect everybody else’s civil rights.

Of course telling you that you should follow the Underpants Rule is, in fact, breaking the Underpants Rule ... which is pesky, so let me instead make a case for the Underpants Rule, and then you can make your own choice.

I chose a Health at Every Size practice because I am a fan of research, logic and math. I think that the research clearly shows that a HAES practice give me a much better shot at health with way less downside risk than a weight loss- based health practice, knowing that