How to Break an Unhealthy Relationship with Food

Many of us form a relationship with food and eating that is based on what our family taught us growing up. A lot of these beliefs are seriously misconstrued. Do you see yourself and your family in any of the following?

Picky eaters.

“Picky” eaters who refused to eat vegetables and believe that “dinner” should be high fat and processed food favorites like mac and cheese, fried chicken, hamburgers, pizza, subs, and hot dogs, as a rule.

The nightly dessert ritual.

Always having dessert after dinner because that’s what your family always did, and always making that dessert something sugary like ice cream, pie, cookies, or cake.

Praising unhealthy eating habits.

Rewarding and praising people for eating mass amounts of food. Example, cheering on your kids for eating more than three slices of pizza, or leading men to believe that they are more manly if they stuff themselves with food. Guilt-based eating rituals.

Moms and grandmas who purposely guilted people who don’t eat enough of the food that they cooked or who have decided to pass on or only take a small portion of, the desserts that they baked.

Using food as an emotional band-aid.

Drowning your sorrows in desserts like a pint of ice cream or stuffing yourself on take-out food because you’re in a mood, had a bad day, and/or are feeling emotional and need comforting.

Food-based rewards. Guilted for having a slim physique.

Being slim or naturally thin, and having heavier people ask you if you’re anorexic when you actually eat a healthy amount of food every day.

Main focus is on food.

Making every party and get together about sitting around and eating. Believe it or not some families build activities, outdoor adventures, sports, and games into their quality time together. And yet others stay focused on making and eating food with not a lot of opportunities to move around.

If you identified with some or all of the practices mentioned above, you’re probably like most Americans and you had to deal with pressure from family around eating and food. The good news is that once you become aware of unhealthy eating habits, you can gradually replace those habits with ones that are more conductive to losing weight and being fit and healthy.

Using food treats and desserts as a reward, for example if your child brings home straight A’s on his or her report card they get taken out for pizza or ice cream, or they get homemade cookies baked for them.

Guilted for being healthy.

Being told that you look too skinny when you’re actually a healthy weight and weigh the same as other people your age and size.