What does a healthy relationship with food look like?
Most people today are constantly bombarded with ideas around the perfect diet or lifestyle, and trying to achieve the perfect body. There is a growing trends towards obtaining ‘perfection’.
However, in reality, perfection is a myth; there is no set standard that a person must aim for. We are all so different, and diversity is something to be cherished, not oppressed or hidden.
The Angry Chef remarks that in a society with increasing levels of stress, inequality and stigma, more and more people are developing an unhealthy relationship with food. They ignore their body’s cues and use food as a tool to try and squish themselves into that tiny imaginary box labelled “perfection”. 1
Our relationship with food is one of the most important. It represents so much more than just nourishment. Food encompasses a sense of community, heritage and inner self. What you eat and the way you eat, reflects your identity and your perspective on the world. Everyone has a different relationship with food, depending on their social, cultural and economic context. There is no one recipe for the perfect mindset, however there are key principles which constitute a healthy one:
1. Flexibility
2. Balance
3. Mindfulness
It’s important to be flexible and make decisions about food based on your own feelings and needs. Listen to your body: choose what you want to eat, not what you feel obligated to. Consider your overall wellness – not just obsess to an extreme on food.
At the end of the day:
You are not what you eat and you’re not defined by your diet or weight
A positive relationship with food is the key to fuelling both your body and mind.
- Warner, A. (2018, August 25). Heart of the Problem (Web blog post). Retrieved May 6, 2019, from https://angry-chef.com/blog/heart-of-the-problem ↩
I love that you’ve bought up the fact that people are allowed to diet if they want to. I feel like dieting has become synonymous as a “dirty” word in this course because of the fact that the majority we have covered are so ridiculously restrictive.
What really interested me is your inclusion of mindfulness. I’m a big fan of this concept and I know it is really popular in the health community. However, I haven’t really heard a lot about it across these plates. How’d you hear about it?
Speaking of social media, we’ve talked about food’s general online presence, but what about other popular movements like the body positivity movement, memes and university culture surrounding food?
I like the idea you point out that there is no such thing as perfection with diet. I definitely agree – in just about any area of life, we try so hard to fit the world into categories and concepts, never realising that our concepts or even the words we use to describe them are just conventions created by our minds! I guess it makes it easier for the brain to chunk information when we form generalisations and labelled concepts like ‘perfect’, but it’s still important to remember to take ourselves with a pinch of salt.