Improving your relationship with food

Having a good relationship with food isn’t necessarily easy for all of us, and we may have to work on it all our lives in the same way you’d work on any relationship.

1. Understand your relationship with food: Before you can work towards a good relationship, it is important to know the signs of a bad one. It’s not about the quality of your diet, or what you eat, it’s about how and why you choose to eat what you do. Signs of a bad relationship with food include – feeling guilty about eating, avoiding or restricting foods that are “bad” for you, developing rules around food, over-reliance on calorie counting or apps, ignoring hunger cues, stress when eating on social situations, restricting or binging.

2. Identifying a good relationship with food: Unlike animals, humans don’t just eat for survival, we eat for a range of reasons such as joy, culture, tradition, socialisation and fuelling our bodies. When you appreciate food as more than just a fuel source, you can begin to develop a healthier relationship. Signs of a good relationship with food include:

• Giving yourself permission to eat the foods you enjoy
• Listening to and respecting your body
• Eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full
• Not obsessing over the scales
• Not letting the opinions of others dictate what you eat
• Not needing to justify food choices
• Understanding that you aren’t defined by what you eat
• Enjoying all foods in moderation
• Choosing food that makes you feel your best
• Not over-focussing on calories

3. Unconditional permission to eat: When you create rules around when you can, and can’t eat, you are setting yourself up for hunger, feelings of deprivation, and fear of food itself, your body deserves food, no matter what the day or situation.

4. Listen to your body: We are all born with a natural ability to regulate hunger, this can start to become lost for a number of reasons, one of which is ignoring our hunger cues (which can start in childhood when our parents made us clear our plates, even though we were full), the closer we can get back to listening to our natural hunger cues, the better we can regulate our appetite and manage food intake.

5. Mindful Eating: Eating in the moment and being fully present in the eating experience. Take time to make gentle observations, such as the taste and texture, how your hunger and fullness cues change and your enjoyment of the food. This can help you to learn the foods you genuinely enjoy and become more in tune with your body, it can also help you to identify the reasons for your food choices.