What is intuitive eating?

Can kids and teens practice intuitive eating?

By Anna Lucas-Zimmer, RD, CHOC dietitian

Intuitive eating is a non-diet approach to eating that encourages the development of healthy and positive relationship with food. It focuses on nourishing and accepting the body while eliminating the toxic thoughts “diet culture” has instilled on society. Intuitive eating teaches how to acknowledge the body’s hunger and fullness and lets you be the expert of your body. It does not enforce rules about what or when to eat and what to avoid. Instead it teaches that you are the person – the best person – to make those choices.

Intuitive eating is rooted in the concept that you should eat when you are hungry and stop when full. Yet, as simple as this might sound, some people have a difficult time making eating decisions based on their intuitiveness.

In order to eat intuitively, one must first trust their body. And to do that, there are two factors to distinguish between: physical and emotional hunger.

• Physical hunger is the urge that tells you to replenish your body with nutrients. It is a gradual signal that expresses itself in different ways such as stomach growling, irritability, fatigue, and eating until satisfied.

• Emotional hunger is driven by emotion versus hunger cues. Feelings that can create a desire for food are boredom, loneliness and sadness, and often is comforted by eating food. This can cause feelings of guilt and self-dislike.

Two dietitians, Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole, developed the concept of intuitive eating in 1995 and created the “Intuitive Eating Principles.”

These principlesare guidelines for nourishing a healthy relationship with food. They put aside dieting, and instead focus on lifestyle changes and personal care which is valued for long-term health.

What are the 10 principles of intuitive eating?

1. Reject the Diet Mentality: Understand diet culture gives a false hope of losing weight quick and easily. Intuitive eating is the anti-diet.
   
2. Honor Your Hunger: Feed your body when you are hungry. Hunger is not your enemy. Keep your body nourished with calories, carbohydrates, protein and fat, because if you become excessively hungry, it will result in over eating.
   
3. Make Peace with Food: Understand it is not you versus food. It is important to eliminate the thoughts of what you should or should not eat.
   
4. Challenge the Food Police: There is no such thing as “good” and “bad” food, nor should you feel good or bad based on what you eat or don’t eat. Challenge these thoughts if present.
   
5. Respect Your Fullness: Not only does your body tell you when you are hungry, but it also tells you when it is full. Understanding signs of fullness will allow you to recognize when the body has had enough food. Throughout the meal, notice how hungry or how full you feel to avoid over eating.
   
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor: Eating should be an enjoyable experience. Eat a meal that tastes good. When you have a meal that is a pleasurable experience, you may notice it takes less food to feel satisfied.
   
7. Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food: Sometimes we cope with our feelings by emotionally eating. Discover ways to cope with feelings that are unrelated to food such as meditating, going on a walk, talking to a friend.
   
8. Respect Your Body: Recognize your body is beautiful and capable of many things just as it is, rather than criticizing your appearance or what you perceive to be wrong with it.
   
9. Exercise – Feel the Difference: Find ways to be physically active that you enjoy. Change the mentality from losing weight to feeling strong, energized, and alive.
   
10. Honor Your Health – Gentle Nutrition: The food should be appetizing and most importantly, make you feel good. Remember one meal or snack will not make or break your health; it is your overall food patterns and eating habits that shape your health.

What are the physical and mental benefits of intuitive eating?

• Improved body satisfaction
• Improved cholesterol levels
• Decreased anxiety and depression
• Lower levels of restrictive and disordered eating

How do you practice intuitive eating?

Intuitive Eating takes practice and patience. It is important to first diminish diet culture’s negative messages, specifically on what you should and should not eat. Remember, there are no such things as “good” and “bad” food. 

Acknowledge your hunger, and ask yourself if you are emotionally or physically hungry. If it is physical hunger, allow yourself permission to eat food that will create feelings of satisfaction. Slowly eat, and trust that your body will give you signs when it is done. Eat when you are hungry but not starving, and stop when you are comfortably full but not stuffed.

How to get started with intuitive eating

• Give yourself patience
• Set boundaries to protect you from “diet talk”
• Trust your body and inner hunger/fullness cues
• Avoid getting too hungry by keeping snacks with you
• Avoid distractions during meal times
• Love your body as it is and treat it with kindness

Intuitive eating is a lifestyle. It allows improvements in your relationships with food while breaking free from diet culture. You are allowed to eat freely, listen to your inner hunger/fullness cues, and select foods that leave you feeling satisfied. Intuitive eating creates improvements in body image, body acceptance, and over-all quality of life. Allow yourself grace throughout the process and accept yourself for who you are.

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