You may have heard this before. “Relationship to food” - what does that mean?
Relationship = the way in which two or more concepts are connected
So, how are you connected to food? Do you use it as comfort? Do you use it as a reward? Do you use it to fuel you? Do you avoid using it altogether?
There are endless unhealthy ways that we all have been taught how to approach food. The above questions can be good and bad ways to use food. We are not here to tell you if your relationship to food is good or bad. We want YOU to think about it and come to your own conclusions. Here are some more ‘food for thought’:
Do you use food as comfort? When you are sad or angry or depressed, it can be easy to ‘eat our feelings’. Temporarily, we forget the sad things we are feeling and instead focus on the delicious food we are eating. It helps us avoid what we don’t want to face.
Do you use food as a reward? I had a hard day and I survived it, so i’m going to treat myself. I just got a promotion, so I’m going to treat myself. This can be fine because it is less frequent. The issue may arise when we reward ourselves with treats frequently.
Do you avoid eating as punishment? I have heard some people say “I can’t have tha t because I haven’t eaten well today. I don’t deserve it”. This puts food in the light that it is something to be earned or deserved.
This brings us to our main point. How DO you view food? The more we can shift our focus to viewing food as our energy source, we will have an appropriate balance. Food is designed to be fuel for our bodies. We want to use the best fuel we have access to so our bodies will run well for as long as possible.