Have you ever wondered whether you have a positive relationship with food? A positive or healthy relationship with food is essential to your physical, emotional, or mental wellness.
Nutrition was exclusively viewed only regarding physical health, giving it a black-and-white perspective. Therefore, we often put only those nutritional decisions that benefit our physical health first. Any other choices, such as those made out of emotion or enjoyment, were seen as undesirable or superfluous.
These are still issues we must and should consider while analyzing nutrition, to a certain extent. Of course, we want to feed our bodies well to live enjoyable and healthy lives. But food has a much broader purpose than just providing energy. We now know that our food decisions impact a lot more than our physical well-being and affect our mental health.
Continue reading to learn what a healthy relationship with food entails so you can start making decisions that will allow you to give your mental and physical well-being priority.
What does a positive or healthy relationship with food entail?
- You have faith in the decisions you make regarding your diet and nutrition.
- You feed yourself in a way that promotes your physical health over the long run.
- You are present throughout mealtimes so you may enjoy your meals thoroughly.
- You eat for the sole purpose of enjoyment.
- You have enough mental clarity to devote your efforts to other aspects of your life without being distracted by eating.
- You eat when hungry, pay attention to satiety signs, and recognize your subconscious hunger signals.
- You are consistent with how you nourish yourself and feel comfortable with your eating habits.
Above are some examples of what a positive relationship with food looks life. Of course, everyone wants to balance their mental and physical health in a way that allows them to perform at their highest level.
So now that you know what a positive relationship with food or eating entails, let’s discuss the qualities you should exhibit to achieve it.
You Feed Yourself Well With Balanced Meals
You must understand how to put together wholesome, balanced meals if you want to be confident in your dietary and nutritional decisions and eat in a way that makes you feel satisfied and energized.
When your meals contain all the necessary nutrients, including protein, starch and sugary carbs, non-starchy carbohydrates, fat, and flavour, you can eat with ease. There is no need to question or second-guess your choices when your meals are balanced appropriately. So, a balanced plate encourages a healthy, balanced relationship with food.
You Can Balance Eating for Both Nourishment and Pleasure
People frequently mistakenly believe that food may either be nourishing or enjoyable. Numerous trends and diets give you the impression that there is no tradeoff between healthy food and the food you eat for pleasure.
As a result, most people either go all in and eat only healthy food neglecting their desire to eat something tasty just for pleasure. Or, they go all out and eat only for fun and immediate gratification.
Cheat day is a common word that we often hear. Many people usually say they were on a strict diet all week, so weekends are their cheat days. However, restricting yourself from eating something you want all week does no good, as you often overeat on cheat days after a long restricted week.
Realizing that food serves as both nourishment and pleasure is the only way to develop a healthy relationship with it. Only when you stop preventing yourself from eating specific foods and eat with an open mind will you be able to have a healthy relationship with food!
You make deliberate food choices to achieve the proper balance.
We can often see people weighing every meal they eat. Counting calories and restricting oneself from eating a particular food or eating at only specific times of the day is a common trend among the youth today. All of these are examples of having a negative relationship with food. So, if you do any of these, you must quit immediately.
Eating with intention and mindfulness rather than restriction or rules is the key to a healthy relationship with food.
You must check with yourselves physically to tune into the body’s hunger and satiety cues to determine portion sizes instead of counting the calories. It would help if you ate when your body asked for it instead of fixing a time for it. Mindful eating promotes a healthy and happy connection with food.
You don’t categorize foods as good or bad.
The idea that nutritious food is good and healthy and that savoury meals are harmful or unhealthy has become so common that everyone today seems to believe it when it is not accurate at all.
Moralizing food in this way is wrong as it impacts how people feel about food. Furthermore, it encourages emotions like compulsion, tension, anxiety, and sentiments of pride to enter your connection with eating, all of which have no relation to positive eating.
A positive relationship with food enables you to understand that food is just that—food. It allows you to find the ideal balance based on your particular wants, requirements, and choices at any given time. It can be either nourishing, enjoyable, or a blend of the two.
Trends, Detoxes, and Diets do not appeal to you.
One of the most crucial steps to building a positive relationship with food is realizing that no two people are the same and that no one diet works for everyone. No trendy diets, trends, or detoxes will appeal to you if you know this.
You can feel good and confident about how you nourish yourself if you balance your meals, eat consciously, put nutrition above fun, and realize that eating has no morality. And when you are confident about what you eat, diets and other fads will no longer appeal to you.
Given above are the five traits that you must embody if you want to build a positive relationship with food. Now that you know what positive eating entails and how to achieve it, eat confidently and create a positive relationship with food and your body!
