3 Hidden Signs You Are in an Unhealthy Relationship with Food — Rethink Nourishment (2024)

You may not think of it as so, but you are in a relationship with food. You have probably spent more time interacting with, thinking about, or making decisions about your food relationship than you have any other relationship in your life.

But when was the last time you considered whether your relationship to food is healthy? Do you experience true fulfillment in your food relationship? Are you happy, healthy… free?

After years of working with people on their diet, lifestyle, and health, I know that most people experience signs of a bad food relationship that range from mild to severe. From people who suffer with disordered eating patterns, to people who struggle with overweight and obesity, to everyone in between, most of us have inherited some of the unhealthy food relationship patterns that run rampant in our culture.

I have put together three of the most common signs that your relationship with food is less than stellar. Let’s take a look and see if any of these hidden signs show up in your food relationship!

You Pretend to Eat Less in Public

Since I was a little girl, I noticed people around me saying things like, “I am so full!” after eating almost nothing, ordering sad-looking side salads at restaurants while constantly staring at someone else’s appetizing entrée, or begging a host to cut them just the smallest sliver of cake at a party with undeniable hints of guilt and longing on their face.

For some reason, pretending not to be hungry or keeping up the appearance of a “healthy” diet by eating an often unbalanced meal of nothing but lettuce and a few raw veggies, has become a stamp of honor, to some, in our culture.

For me this signifies two deeper problems in someone’s food relationship:

One, the person doesn’t really understand what it means to eat healthy and they equate healthy eating with “do not eat enough to satisfy my appetite,” and “eat salad, but nothing else.”

Two, the person feels guilty about having a full meal and a healthy appetite. They view their hunger as a source of shame, and want to hide, or make it appear as if they eat “like a bird” on a “rabbit food” diet.

But there is a healthy balance… and in case you are wondering, it is perfectly okay to have “just a sliver” of cake at a party, or no cake at all. The key to whether this is a sign of an unhealthy food relationship is determined by the motive. So, ask yourself, “Why am I choosing to have no cake or just a sliver of cake?”

Is it because you feel satisfied and content? Is it because you have healthier food waiting for you? Is it because you don’t eat much sugar, and this is not one of the occasions you want to partake in a sweet treat? If so, I condone all these reasons as healthy motivations for refusing cake!

But, if you are refusing cake because you feel ashamed for people to see you eat a large slice of cake, or having cake does not align with the “healthy” image you want others to believe about you, or perhaps you are punishing yourself for eating a “bad” meal the previous day, then you are operating from a place of food guilt, an unhealthy motivator in any food relationship.

You Regularly Tell People They Are “Skinny”

I went through a legitimate and visible “chunky” stage as a child, young teen, and after having my first child. Through all those phases, I had people (most often women) who were bigger than me or sometimes the same size telling me how “skinny” I was. These days I still hear about how “skinny” I am from some people, although my body type is athletic, thick in some parts thinner in others, healthy and definitely not appearing under-fed nor naturally lanky.

However, I have come to realize, from my personal and career experience, that people who say things like, “Oh, you’re so skinny,” or “You can eat anything, because you are tiny,” or “You’ve always been skinny,” suffer from some degree of poor body image or image obsession.

In some cases, women who make comments about other people being “skinny” are significantly overweight and view their weight as the elephant in the room. To deflect attention away from themselves, they may make a big deal about someone else’s weight, calling out someone, who is smaller than themselves, as “skinny.” For these women, being around someone who is smaller than them may evoke feelings of self-consciousness and comparison that compel them to say something about the other person being “skinny” or “thin.”

Sometimes, women who are the same size or perhaps even smaller than the “skinny” person make comments about the other person being “skinny” or “tiny” because weight, size, and body comparison are at the forefront of this person’s mind. They may overamplify what they view as a desirable feature in the other person’s physique, a flat tummy, for example, and use it as a “go-to” topic of conversation. In my experience, I have noticed that this type of woman’s “skinny” comment is often followed by a negative comment about their own body or weight.

Unaware of the psychological factors at play, many women fall into the “You’re skinny, I’m fat,” comment conundrum because our mothers, and grandmothers, and their mothers did it.

So, how does this all tie back to an unhealthy food relationship? If you have a poor body image or you over obsess about image as an indicator of self-worth, you are likely to experience an unhealthy relationship with food.

You may binge diet in effort to change your body, you may workout just to undo a “bad meal,” or you may use your body type as an excuse for why you are overweight and mask the fact that your eating and exercise habits may also contribute.

You Feel Overwhelmed, Busy, and Unmotivated

I recently conducted some research to help me better understand what people need to help them live more healthy, fit lives. I immediately noticed a majority of women expressing that they struggled with motivation and focus.

At first glance, this would suggest that women were struggling with some kind intrinsic determination to stick to a diet or exercise plan and do the work to get healthy.

However, I noticed an additional trend with the women who said that they felt unmotivated or unfocused. Many of these women also explained how busy or overwhelmed they were with long work schedules, demanding projects, travel obligations, and young children and family responsibilities.

These women weren’t lacking motivation from laziness or some other character flaw, they were lacking motivation because they were overwhelmed with their daily lives, leaving little room to change anything about their fitness habits or food relationship with any degree of success.

Establishing the foundation of a healthy food relationship takes time and mental space. Maintaining a healthy food relationship requires you to continually make it a priority in your life.

If everything else in your life takes up all your time and energy, be it essential commitments such as work and family, or non-essential commitments such as checking social media, binge watching Netflix, or going to that event or party that you think you “have to” go to, then what time do you have left for yourself? Do you have any time left for your food relationship?

Do You Have an Unhealthy Food Relationship?

Did you relate to any of the hidden signs that you are in an unhealthy relationship with food? If so, I do not want you to feel demotivated, guilty, or ashamed.

Honestly, I would be surprised if you had never experienced food guilt, or body image issues, or struggled to find time to prioritize your food relationship.

But these are just some of the factors that can lead to an unhealthy relationship with food. I have created a free quiz so that you can assess your food relationship from all the angles and all the factors that can contribute to an unhealthy relationship with food.

After taking this free quiz, you will receive a custom report that will rate the health of your food relationship. Think of it like a physical, for your food relationship. It will tell you where you currently stand, so that you know what you need to work on in the future.

Remember how I told you I would tell you how to access my “My Top Food Relationship Tips”? As a bonus for taking my quiz, I will include “My Top Food Relationship Tips” PDF along with your custom food relationship results, after you take the quiz.

As always, I hope that reading my blog post today helps you progress your food relationship forward so that you can live the healthy, happy, optimal life I know you desire, so, feel free to schedule a free 15-minute consultation with me to chat about what is on your mind, about your relationship to food!

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