Are my food rules in service of body-attunement or diet culture?

Before we jump into food rules, let’s start at the bowling ally.

Birthday parties at the bowling ally were popular choices growing up. People of all ages could have fun and the prep was minimal — all you had to do was show up. Better yet, if you weren’t good at bowling you could get bumpers on the lanes to prevent gutter-balls. This would almost always guarantee a few points for a new bowler as they learned to control their swing.

The idea with bumpers is that eventually, a person will get familiar enough with the method that they can eventually enjoy the activity without them.

We have bumpers when it comes to a lot of things, including food. Often time these bumpers are set-up by our care-givers as we learn the impact of eating too much or too little of a certain food or food group. “If you eat too many snacks before dinner, you won’t eat enough chicken to grow big and strong.” That type of thing.

As we grow, our priorities change and new information enters the conversation. Instead of (or perhaps in addition to) our parents advising us on how to ensure our growth, a coach might offer guidelines about what to eat for high performance. We may discover a lactose-intolerance that benefits from Lactaid or a food allergy that requires strict compliance. Eventually we end up with a whole heap of recommendations from different sources that ostensibly support our body’s highest function and optimal health.

Or do they?

In today’s age of information, the sources of our food-rules don’t always have our best interests at heart, nor do they always know what they’re talking about. What we thought would provide structure and clarity around nourishment often becomes a pile of directives that conflict with other internal signals. This is especially true when the rules are intended to control body-size. Our body is genetically predisposed to a certain set-point and when we try to control that with food or exercise; well, nature always finds a way.

Many of my colleagues will advocate for discarding all the food rules and lean-into the mess of learning to follow your body’s cues. That’s certainly one way to go and one many people find liberating. But bumpers, as we discussed earlier, can help us take those initial steps toward the skills with which we want to feel more confident. Sometimes we need new temporary rules to help us overcome old ones.

All that to say, not all food-rules sabotage our relationship to our bodies or their cues. So how can we tell which rules are in service to our overall wellness and which ones simply perpetuate the values of diet culture?

1. Write down all your food rules. Include moments where you say, “I try (not) to eat…” It might be hard to recall them all at once so consider giving yourself a day or even a week to notice them. As you go about your day, how do you decide what to eat? If someone were to offer you something different, would you say no and what is the reason? Write them down in your phone or a notebook.

2. Consider when and from whom you adopted each rule. Some of the rules may be, “We’ve just always done it that way.” Other rules may have come from a certain person, like a family member or a coach. Notice how you feel toward that person now. Are they still in your life? If not, do you want this rule they gave you in your life?

3. Reflect on the intention and the impact of each rule. Are the two aligned? Maybe an intention of one rule is to prevent you from eating too much of a food but then the impact leads you to having more than you otherwise would have. Or perhaps the intention is to prevent “eaters remorse” and the impact is hit or miss; sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

4. Consider breaking each food rule one at a time. What do you risk by breaking the it? What’s at stake? How do you feel emotionally or physiologically when you break the rule?

5. Imagine the rule didn’t exist at all. Who would you be and how would you feel without it?

EXAMPLE

1. Write down all your food rules

   1. Don’t eat dairy

   2. I try not to eat after 8pm

   3. Don’t buy food while traveling

2. Consider when and from whom you adopted each rule

   1. On and off since I was young, more of a thing after high school

   2. Something I hear someone say, maybe a family member?

   3. I remember doing this in my early teenage years

3. Intention and impact…

   1. I get indigestion when I eat dairy without lactaid. The rule saves me from that

   2. I can’t remember the intention, maybe to reduce heartburn but also maybe to prevent unconscious snacking and food consumption. When I follow it I sometimes go to bed hungry.

   3. Partly to save money but is also connected to feeling like I need to earn food through exercise. It leaves me feeling terrible when I travel.

4. Consider breaking each rule one at a time…

   1. I get indigestion and my stomach hurts for a bit

   2. I might get heartburn and I would likely feel guilty for lack of discipline and scared that my body would change

   3. I would worry about how my body size or composition would change

5. Imagine the rule didn’t exist at all

   1. I would get indigestion more often or I’d need to eat a lactaid

   2. I would feel a lot more relaxed after dinner

   3. I could stay nourished while I traveled and not be so miserable

All of these answers can help uncover whether or not a food rule is an echo of diet culture or supports your body attunement. As shown in the example, some of your rules may have started in support of your body attunement but also carry echoes of dieting. Notice which of your rules follow this pattern.

Your answers to question number 2 can illuminate a lot about who influences you around food and offer you a chance to have consent about whether that’s a voice you want to continue following. The answers to question 5 can indicate your readiness for moving away from any given rule. Many times people are ready to break some rules before they’re ready to break others.

The most potent answer for our purposes are the answers to question 3 and 4; what is the intention of the rule and what is the cost of going agains it? If either of these answers have to do with your psycho-social experience, body size, or emotions; chances are this rule is an echo of diet culture. If you’re holding deep emotional fear about breaking a rule that’s not related to an allergy, Internal Family Systems can be a powerful tool for healing that fear.

Last but certainly not least: there are no intrinsically good for bad rules, just like there are no intrinsically good or bad foods. It’s important to notice how much power we give our rules and assess how they serve us so we may let go of what no longer does.

If you would like support navigating your food rules, I would love to hear from you.