What on earth are ‘food rules’?

Think you have a good relationship with food? I thought so too. Until I discovered all of my sneaky ‘food rules’.

‘Food rules’ are the ways that diet culture shows up in how we eat and our relationship with food. These rules have been shaped and formed throughout our lifetime by diet culture.

We live in a society where food rules are normalised. Our society is very weight centric. Diet culture is lurking in every corner of convential media, social media, family culture and norms amongst our friends.

I would like you just to start by noticing. Sounds simple, right? Start to notice what ‘food rules’ show up for you. Here are a few common ones from @clean.kweens…

“Swapping a meal for coffee”-skipping meals, supressing appetite, ignoring hunger signals.

“I need to burn of last night’s dinner”-the need to earn/burn off food.

“I don’t eat junk food”-restricting and eliminating certain food groups.

“This is a cheat meal”-labeling foods as good, bad, clean or dirty. An ‘all or nothing’ mindset.

“This is way too high in calories” counting calories, saving up calories, restriction.

Adopt a curious and non-judgemental approach to these ‘food rules’. Like I said, these have been developed and conditioned over our whole lifetime.

Recognise any ‘food rules’ that may be causing havoc, these are rules that are rigid, or have elements of restriction or control.

Be conscious of the content you consume. You get to curate your own social feed. Make a choice to unfollow anyone who enforces diet culture or unhealthy ‘food rules’.

Swap your feed for ‘Anti-diet’, ‘intuitive eating’, ‘health at every size’ and ‘food freedom’ content.

This will support you in beginning to ‘Challenge the ‘food police’. Basically, you get to start making intuitive and conscious choices of how you nourish and move your body-how liberating!

These ‘food rules’ can and will still pop up. Just remember, you don’t need to listen or act on them.

Be kind to yourself.

Morgan x