National Nutrition Month 2023
March is National Nutrition Month! As dietitians, we love food and are passionate about its role in our overall health and wellbeing. As anti-diet dietitians, we believe that there are tons of reasons for our food choices, and everyone deserves to be able to nourish and take care of themselves in their own unique way.
We’re taking this month to highlight the Intuitive Eating Principle of Honor Your Health with Gentle Nutrition. If you’ve read or are reading the Intuitive Eating book, you’ll see that this is the last principle discussed in the book. It’s important to remember that nutrition is one aspect of eating and caring for yourself, not the whole picture. If a healthy relationship with food is not in place, it’s difficult to pursue healthy eating. Nutrition information quickly becomes another diet or set of food rules and a source of stress instead of helpful info.
Nutrition information should help us feel empowered to make choices that feel good to our bodies and minds, not stressed out that we aren’t being perfect eaters (hint: there’s no such thing as the perfect way to eat). In fact, over-emphasis on nutrition can lead to orthorexia, an unhealthy, rigid obsession with healthy eating.
So rather than talking about specific nutrition guidelines, we invite you to consider a few ways to embrace gentle nutrition.
Zoom out and look at the big picture. Diet culture has us stressing about individual nutrients, calories, grams, portion sizes, etc. Of course, research does support certain foods’ and nutrients’ roles in our health, but no one meal, snack, or day of eating will make you unhealthy. And not every meal needs to be perfectly balanced to give us the nutrients we need. It’s our eating habits over time that matter.
Add in instead of cutting out. It seems like the latest diet trends and recommendations always involve removing or avoiding some food. Instead of approaching the situation such as cutting out sugar to be healthier (which will likely result in you craving and eating even more sweets), are there changes you can make to enhance your health without having to omit anything? Maybe making it a goal to try a new fruit or vegetable each week, cooking at home more often, or having balanced snacks on hand to prevent extreme hunger.
Try out a loose structure around meals and snacks. Our bodies need consistent nourishment throughout the day, every day. Having a loose schedule around meals and snacks can make planning what to eat easier, help you feel prepared, and prevent extremes with hunger and fullness. It also gives you the opportunity to put some thought into what you’d like to eat during the week before mealtime comes around.
Embrace “all foods fit”. It’s true! All foods can fit into a healthful eating pattern. Our bodies are remarkably good at taking care of us when we give them the building blocks. Excluding foods you really love because they are considered unhealthy leads to feelings of deprivation and makes those forbidden foods even more appealing. When you include all foods, you open yourself up to variety with tastes, textures, pleasurable eating experiences, and nutrients. Guilt has no place in healthful eating.
Curious to learn more about gentle nutrition or healing your relationship with food? We would love to help. Check out our contact page here to get in touch and speak with one of our registered dietitians.