How to Challenge the Dieting Voices

In the world of food and nutrition, there are many voices that inform our food choices. Many of these voices are external and are often deeply rooted in diet culture and the dieting mentality. An important part of developing a healthier relationship with food is to become aware of your thoughts about food and learning to question them.

Introduction

 

Practicing Intuitive Eating can help you listen to supportive voices that nurture your needs and support your body’s functioning. Intuitive Eating can be described as a personal process of honoring health by listening and responding to the direct messages of the body in order to meet your physical and psychological needs (1). In Intuitive Eating (IE), one of the principles is to Challenge the Food Police. 

This principle implies that there are many food voices that contribute to our thoughts about food, and subsequently, our feelings and behaviors around those foods (2). 

For the dieter, destructive dieting voices including the food police, diet rebel and nutrition informant work together by causing feelings of shame and guilt around food, keeping you stuck in diet culture and disconnected from your body.

For the intuitive eater, powerful ally voices consisting of the nutrition ally, food anthropologist, nurturer and rebel ally work together by helping you be in touch with your inner voices while helping you find peace with food and your body.

Let’s use a hypothetical story in order to highlight how one can challenge diet culture voices and honor supportive voices.

Mike is a 45 yo male who loves pizza, but he thinks that it’s bad for him. He has salads instead, but they don’t satisfy him. He craves pizza more and more, until one day his partner brings home a large pizza for them. Mike can’t resist and eats most of it, then feels terrible. He tells himself he will never eat pizza again, even if it means missing out on fun times with his friends and family. He feels like he has no control over his eating and he is ashamed of himself.

Where do food voices come from? How do they develop over time?

Many things can affect how we think about food, a big one being diet culture. Diet culture is a system of beliefs that worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue, causing many of us to feel terrible about ourselves since we can’t live up to this unrealistic standard. We can also get influenced by our family, school or sports environment, which might have their own rules about food. When we hear these messages all the time, it can bring up a lot of shame around eating and make it extremely difficult to respect our body’s unique needs.

In Mike’s case, here are various destructive voices that influence his food decisions:

Destructive Dieting Voices: 

 

– The Food Police: Pizza is bad so you need to avoid it. 

– The Diet Rebel: My partner told me I should be more careful with the quantities I eat. Who are they to tell me what to do? I’ll show them that I can eat as much as I want. 

– The Nutrition Informant: You shouldn’t eat pizza, it’s rich in fat and salt. Make yourself a salad instead. 

Let’s now take a look at what more supportive voices could look like for Mike:

 
 
Powerful Ally Voices: 

 

– The Nutrition Ally: I can have a side of salad with my pizza. It would be refreshing and make my meal more balanced. 

– The Nurturer: I ate way past my fullness, but that’s okay, it happens and I will learn from it.

– The Food Anthropologist: Every time I get pizza, I eat at least 8 slices and experience guilt.

– Rebel Ally: I will tell my partner that I don’t appreciate it when they tell me what I should or shouldn’t do.

How do we start to challenge the dieting voices? 

 
Awareness is a key piece in beginning that process. It’s helpful to build a practice of awareness through journaling or setting aside a specific moment of the day to tune into your thoughts. 
  1. When you choose to eat a certain food, notice what your thoughts are about it. Ask yourself “Are there any food rules here? Who is influencing my food choice?” 
  2. Write down what the food rules are or which dieting voice is contributing to your food choices. Ask yourself “Are these thoughts true? How does believing this voice influence my relationship with food? Is there a powerful ally voice that could be helpful in this case?” 
  3. Write down what the powerful ally voice might say to challenge the food rules or the dieting voice.

Conclusion

 

Challenging the Food Police is a process that requires effort and patience. It can greatly contribute to healing one’s relationship with food and is demonstrated to have a protective factor in regards to the development of eating disorders (4). Challenging the Food Police is often used alongside the other principles of IE. 

It can be difficult to go through this journey without support. If you’re not sure where to start or would like to be accompanied in some way, contact us so that we can help! You can reach us at info@sooma.ca or at 514-437-4260.

You can also book an appointment with one of our professionals directly by clicking this link.

Written by

Picture of Annyck Besso

Annyck Besso

Registered Dietitian

References

  1. The Intuitive Eating Pros (2018). What is Intuitive Eating?  Retrieved on May 31 2023 at https://www.intuitiveeating.org/what-is-intuitive-eating-tribole/ 

  2. Tribole, E. & Resch, E. (2012) Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press

  3. Lithwick, D (2019).  Intuitive Eating 101 Series – Principles #4: Challenge the Food Police. Retrieved on May 31 2023 at https://www.daniellelithwick.ca/blog/intuitive-eating-101-series-principle-4-challenge-the-food-police#:~:text=The%20four%20Ally%20Voices%20are,Ally%2C%20and%20the%20Rebel%20Ally.  

  4. Linardon, J,Tylka T. L.,& Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M. (2021). Intuitive eating and its psychological correlates: A meta-analysis. Retrieved on May 31 2023 at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/eat.23509

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