Body Respect disrupts business as usual to advance nutritional wellbeing for all

How do we get from calorie counting and food preoccupation to relishing eating and enjoying body confidence? I’ll share three ways in which putting body respect at the centre can help turn the tide on body shame, weight stigma and rising health inequalities and promote enjoyable eating, and nutrition justice.
A powerful first step is to bring body knowledge back in to view. It’s traditional to teach cognitive restraint and willpower in pursuit of healthy eating, but this all too often backfires. Rational knowledge has its place – just ask someone living with a peanut allergy – but food rules become problematic when they encourage us to ignore body signals. It’s hardly surprising so many people feel out of control around eating when we eat with our heads. All those ‘shoulds’ ‘have to’ ‘mustn’ts’ fuel body-mind disconnect and play havoc with our internal regulation systems.
Tuning into body signals and sensations such as appetite, fullness, gut comfort, emotions and overall satisfaction, can help restore a healthy relationship with food. This means we eat in response to occasion, taste preference, energy levels and learn to trust ourselves to meet our needs. Shifting to this more intuitive, connected way of eating allows food and eating to meet non-nutritional roles, such as pleasure,  values, family and identity. Tuning into our bodies can help us identify emotional aspects of eating which in turn helps us make more sense of our eating behaviours. If w...

Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - August 27, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Food Nutrition Source Type: blogs