Is Food Your Friend or Enemy?

It starts with Halloween candy and then moves into Thanksgiving, Holiday parties, Christmas and right through New Year’s. The guilt. The shame. The trying to add more exercise into the busiest six weeks of the year - just to make up for all the extra calories.

This familiar pattern of eating and thinking about food, albeit unhealthy and dysfunctional, is uncomfortably comforting. I had a sense this wasn’t good for me, but really had no idea the impact it was having until I recently sat down with Registered Dietitian Isabelle Bouchard, owner of @Bamboo Nutrition (www.BambooNutritionrd.com) in Columbia, MO. She introduced me to a term I had never heard; disordered eating.

Defining disordered eating is difficult but includes a pattern of eating behaviors and emotions around eating that are physically, emotionally and psychologically destructive. Some of these include frequent dieting, skipping meals, chronic weight fluctuations, rigid rituals around food and exercising, feelings of guilt and shame, and using exercise, food restriction, fasting or purging to “make up for bad food” choices. 

If reading this list makes you feel uncomfortable, you’re in good company. Research suggests that nearly half of Americans have a problematic or disordered relationship with food, body, and exercise. 

As we move into the “eating season” and you struggle to have a positive relationship with food, here are a few tips from Isabelle to keep in mind:

1. Surround yourself with positive messages: intuitive eating Instagram accounts, anti-diet or food peace podcasts, unfollowing diet/trendy posts that make you feel bad about your eating or your body. 

2. Consider your own thoughts and beliefs about food. Where did those beliefs start and do you still believe them to be true? Are they rooted in diet culture, false advice, childhood, etc.?

3.  Recognize that you might benefit from the help of a dietician or counselor who can help you identify destructive patterns with food and replace them with healthier routines. 

Want to learn more about this subject and get tips for improving your relationship with food? You won’t want to miss this week’s upcoming podcast episode of the Problem with Perfect, as Isabelle joins us and shares her incredible and encouraging insight.