Does Intuitive Eating Ignore Health?
A common concern I hear regarding Intuitive Eating is the assumption that it ignores health. This comes with a belief that food neutrality means we ignore the ways different foods impact our body.
So is this true? Does intuitive eating ignore health? Does it encourage you to eat nothing but potato chips and pass on the spinach?
The quick answer - no!
Does intuitive eating ignore health?
The quick answer - no!
In fact, intuitive eating is significantly more concerned with health than diets and has been validated by over 100 clinical studies for its support of disease management and prevention. Because intuitive eating is so much more nuanced than “eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full”, it can be hard to understand just what it’s all about. Today, let’s look at one example to help us better understand what intuitive eating really means.
Example:
Amber always fills half her plate with vegetables, even though she hates them. She eats them first to get them out of the way and then moves on to the rest of her plate.
In this example, Amber would be applauded by diet culture! She’s doing everything right… isn’t she? Except when Amber tires of this, “slips up” at a restaurant, and has a strong shame response to her food choices. Or how about when she’s running between appointments and only has a small bakery as a food option and chooses not to eat at all?
How would the intuitive eating approach impact Amber?
What would look different if Amber was taking an intuitive eating approach?
There would be no rule saying half the plate should be vegetables.
Yep - a dietitian is decreasing the veggie expectation.
It’s actually extremely unhelpful to make yourself eat something that you hate. It ignores other areas of health, and there are even clinical studies showing that the satisfaction factor can impact our ability to digest and absorb the nutrients of our food. Amber likely has some history around vegetables that has damaged her relationship with them. Intuitive eating would allow other foods on her plate, would explore past history around vegetables, and would encourage exploration of new flavors and cooking methods with this challenging food group. This approach decreases stress around food, allows flexibility, and often leads to increased variety in nutrient intake.
*Important note: there would be the same approach if fats were the challenging food group. Food neutrality means that we are looking at all food from a neutral lens and getting curious about them. If there are strong judgements about a food being good or bad, it’s worth looking into the history of that food. The mental load associated with good food/ bad food judgements is important to explore when looking at the full picture of health.
Eating consistently would be prioritized over specific nutrients.
Strict food rules often get in the way of our basic nutrition needs - energy! Eating consistently supports our blood sugar, energy, metabolism, and every organ of the body. This also decreases the external noise and allows us to look inward to what our body is asking for - are we hungry? full? do we need more of a specific type of food?
No food would be off limits.
Moving away from the good food/ bad food mentality, we would celebrate the fact that every food has something to offer and they don’t belong on a food hierarchy. Some foods bring back positive feelings of nostalgia, some provide quick energy, some provide dense micronutrients. Our body is complex and runs best on a variety of foods and nutrients.
Overall, intuitive eating supports flexibility and peace while honoring our full picture of health.
What do you think about this approach? Do you have another example you’d like to see in a future blog post? I’d love to hear from you at emma@blacksheepnutrition.com.