this is one of my favorite posts of yours, and i love all of your posts. you really have an incredible ability to see both sides of an issue comprehensively, cut through the bullshit, and write your way to a middle ground in a thoughtful, kind, and insightful way. this type of analysis is lacking in all areas of modern society, but i do think it may be particularly sparse within the intersected web of food, diet, weight, and exercise.
i love the reframe of eating less hyperpalatable food as an act of resistance and an act of true self care! we’ve been in a phase where “eat what you want and as much of it as you want” is the ultimate pushback on diet culture and body shaming, and not only did that essentially eliminate personal accountability from the equation, but it also gave Big Food the most incredible opportunity to capitalize on, as they also capitalize on the continuing food trends that ebb and flow, like high protein or low fat or low sugar.
and relinquishing that rigid control over what you eat and how much you eat IS an important part of the journey toward no longer moralizing food — it was the foundation of my eating disorder recovery in college, and naturally, i graduated college quite a bit heavier than when i entered. but the point is NOT to never regain any boundaries around how we eat, to never think “i want to eat this” and choose to ignore that desire rather than immediately give in to it. control and restriction are not inherently evil tools of diet culture! they can also be very helpful tools for every day human life!
Earlier this summer, I went on an anti inflammatory elimination diet because I suspected that my diet was contributing to mental health woes. (Spoiler alert: I was correct!) and that necessitated cutting out ultra processed foods among other things for three weeks. (It was not about restricting calories, just foods that cause inflammation.) The effect of doing so was pretty life changing because I figured out just how addicted I was to ultra processed food. But I also discovered that without UPF, I actually do have instinctive intelligence about how to eat. I started losing weight without counting calories or even being aware of it. It wasn’t until my mom said that I looked different that I even saw it. This was after years of believing that I was powerless to change my body. I was trapped in the narrative that I had no power over my body or my food. And ultimately that benefits General Mills and Yum Brands Incorporated way more than it benefits me. Even if the deck is stacked against us, I’m not going to let that stop me from trying. I can’t change the system but I can change myself. And while I still eat UPF occasionally I am no longer willing to lie to myself about how it makes me feel.
And then there are people like me who unintentionally under ate their whole lives (orthorexia, poor digestion, found feeding myself difficult and actually sitting down to eat tedious) who also find ourselves ballooning within a short period of time, usually after an acute stressor breaks the camel’s under nourished back. I never overate, I cut out processed foods 20 years ago, I was living that healthy lifestyle. And now I’m edging into obesity at age 43, it’s just that I took a different pathway to destroying my metabolic functioning.
I had severe stomach issues related to my disability and one of the things my great functional medicine doctor said was to try to avoid sugar. He felt it was aggravating my condition. I wasn't a big fan of sugary food, but I started looking at labels. What an eye-opener! Who knew that spaghetti sauce had so much sugar. I wasn't overweight, but I was literally feeling sick all the time. He said I couldn't have a bite every once in awhile and wasn't trying to shame me, just trying to help me feel better. And believe me, all I wanted was to feel good enough to make it through a day. I went cold on getting rid of sugar. It wasn't easy and it wasn't the time when they had things that were sugar-free without fake sweeteners. He said. If you're going to have, thanks sweetener you might as well eat sugar! I truly believe that we are engineered to eat sugar because of everything it is in and the food industry is out there to get us. There is so much sugar in everything! After limiting my sugar intake, I started to feel better. I actually had to have surgery, a colostomy, that cured the problem, but when I went back to trying to eat anything sugary I literally felt sick. Sick. After a couple of bites I couldn't handle it. Desserts don't taste good. It's not like I don't want ice cream every once in awhile, but I am completely convinced with your theory that the food industry makes it so that we get addicted to these foods. People rail against anyone who writes that sugar should be regulated like tobacco. I'm not so sure they are wrong. A little bit in moderation is okay. But people don't realize that sugar is in everything and the industry does it for a reason.
Sheri, so nice to see you commenting here! Thank you for sharing. I agree that just realizing what is in our food (even not-processed foods; it was cool for me to learn about the nutrient profile of so-called "whole" foods, too, once i started paying attention) can be incredibly powerful
this is a very not researched guess but i am also wondering if the ubiquitousness(???) of cigarette smoking may have impacted the weight ppl carried as i heard that it did work as a sort of appetite suppressor in a way.
also saw another comment that said sugar is in literally everything we as americans eat so i am not surprised if we are addicted to sugar without even knowing it
i have seen people point to smoking as well. I wonder what any research might show about this in the years to come considering a lot of people are vaping like crazy ...
I come from an orthorexic background and purposefully ate UPFs during my recovery. But that didn't last long because I felt sluggish and nauseous whenever these products were consistently in my diet. And so, as part of my intuitive-eating journey, I mostly cut them out. But that isn't available to everyone--and this is the part of the story I think you're missing--because it's an incredible privilege to have the time and money to access and prepare food from scratch and near-scratch. Working parents in particular are extremely time-squeezed, and UPFs can be a life-saver as they struggle to not fly off the hamster wheel motorized by dehumanizing economic policies. And when do we reach for the tastiest comfort foods? When we are under the most stress. And Americans, with our only two weeks of paid vacation if we're white collar enough for even that, and our outrageous rents, low wages, and expensive healthcare... we are stressed. I'm not saying poor economic policies are to blame for poor health rather than food companies that know what trash they are purveying. But they are working hand in hand to keep people from maker better choices for themselves. We need to fix both.
Oh one HUNDRED percent. This is one of the systems I’m talking about. I didn’t get into it much here but I completely agree; the fact that UPFs are a life-saver means people should definitely have them if that’s what makes sense for them in terms of time/money/access, but I think it’s awful that these are the foods that are most easy/cheap/available. I wrote a post years ago about the more nutrient dense foods that actually are cheap and readily available at fast food places, bodegas, etc. I’ll have to dig that up. But you’re right that stress is a huge factor here. Chronic stress drives comfort seeking and these foods are an easy comfort.
Hmm Intuitive Eating with any sort of restriction is not Intuitive Eating though... Despite hyperpalatable foods are less nutritionally dense, from personal experience of 3 years of recovery from 15 years of disordered earing, to change a disordered eating or ED mindset you have to let go of all restrictions or you can slip back into disorder because with restrictions you are perpetuating a scarcity mindset - which is instinctual to us humans who fought famines and hardships to get us where we are today. Further stages of IE in recovery do stress the importance of gentle nutrition and really understanding what makes your body feel good and what makes it feel bad. However, it's difficult to reach that stage without allowing all foods, which unfortunately includes these hyperpalatable ones. It's a true tragedy that our food system has become so focused on profit at the expense of consumers (classic capitalism) but for those who may be in recovery or exploring it, I feel it's important to divorce yourself from categorizing different foods as "good for you" or "bad for you" until you reach a more safe place with food. IE is a slowwww and scary process but understanding why IE is "structured" the way it is, is key. I know this is not the major point of the writing (the topic of which I think is very important btw) but I wrote this for people reading who may be struggling with an ED or IE and may be sensitive to the comments on restriction. Important to remember good health is a balance of your mental and physical health. Mental is just as important even if it means being a little fatter than you'd like. (**Steps off soapbox**).
Thanks for this comment. I really do understand what you're saying and I'm sure this is the right way to think about it for many people. It's just a matter of my personal experience that the more "cold turkey" thing was more helpful in the end. But to be clear, I have not and will not ever cut out all so-called "bad" foods! I love me some "junk food" now and then, and tapping into the anti-diet type of intuition I now feel that I have enabled me to let those foods in. I hope everyone can arrive at it in whatever way works best for them/feels least harmful.
Thank you for thinking of the people who are struggling with ED and IE <3
Your capacity to hold opposing truths while being honest and open and owning your own experiences without assuming/projecting is truly remarkable.
I’ve encountered countless impressively credentialed mental health professionals who can’t reflect nearly this deeply into the nature/nurture paradox, much less express it so clearly and compassionately to others.
As a person who in recovery from numerous addictions and disordered eating—as a result of severe, violent childhood trauma!—your perspective has consistently been such a beautiful gift to behold.
It’s incredibly heavy to contend with the knowing that what is absolutely not our fault remains our responsibility nonetheless. Thank you for both inheriting and developing the incredible strength it requires to hold the Truth.
“we are being well and truly fucked by the American system that has engineered, mass marketed, and made spectacularly abundant the kind of food that is more likely than any other to annihilate your ability to nourish yourself and make your life harder.”🔥
this is one of my favorite posts of yours, and i love all of your posts. you really have an incredible ability to see both sides of an issue comprehensively, cut through the bullshit, and write your way to a middle ground in a thoughtful, kind, and insightful way. this type of analysis is lacking in all areas of modern society, but i do think it may be particularly sparse within the intersected web of food, diet, weight, and exercise.
i love the reframe of eating less hyperpalatable food as an act of resistance and an act of true self care! we’ve been in a phase where “eat what you want and as much of it as you want” is the ultimate pushback on diet culture and body shaming, and not only did that essentially eliminate personal accountability from the equation, but it also gave Big Food the most incredible opportunity to capitalize on, as they also capitalize on the continuing food trends that ebb and flow, like high protein or low fat or low sugar.
and relinquishing that rigid control over what you eat and how much you eat IS an important part of the journey toward no longer moralizing food — it was the foundation of my eating disorder recovery in college, and naturally, i graduated college quite a bit heavier than when i entered. but the point is NOT to never regain any boundaries around how we eat, to never think “i want to eat this” and choose to ignore that desire rather than immediately give in to it. control and restriction are not inherently evil tools of diet culture! they can also be very helpful tools for every day human life!
Thank you so much, adriane :) i'm so glad you found recovery, too
Earlier this summer, I went on an anti inflammatory elimination diet because I suspected that my diet was contributing to mental health woes. (Spoiler alert: I was correct!) and that necessitated cutting out ultra processed foods among other things for three weeks. (It was not about restricting calories, just foods that cause inflammation.) The effect of doing so was pretty life changing because I figured out just how addicted I was to ultra processed food. But I also discovered that without UPF, I actually do have instinctive intelligence about how to eat. I started losing weight without counting calories or even being aware of it. It wasn’t until my mom said that I looked different that I even saw it. This was after years of believing that I was powerless to change my body. I was trapped in the narrative that I had no power over my body or my food. And ultimately that benefits General Mills and Yum Brands Incorporated way more than it benefits me. Even if the deck is stacked against us, I’m not going to let that stop me from trying. I can’t change the system but I can change myself. And while I still eat UPF occasionally I am no longer willing to lie to myself about how it makes me feel.
Thanks Amber. I really think most of us do have that instinctive intelligence but the signals just get blocked by all the food available to us now
And then there are people like me who unintentionally under ate their whole lives (orthorexia, poor digestion, found feeding myself difficult and actually sitting down to eat tedious) who also find ourselves ballooning within a short period of time, usually after an acute stressor breaks the camel’s under nourished back. I never overate, I cut out processed foods 20 years ago, I was living that healthy lifestyle. And now I’m edging into obesity at age 43, it’s just that I took a different pathway to destroying my metabolic functioning.
I had severe stomach issues related to my disability and one of the things my great functional medicine doctor said was to try to avoid sugar. He felt it was aggravating my condition. I wasn't a big fan of sugary food, but I started looking at labels. What an eye-opener! Who knew that spaghetti sauce had so much sugar. I wasn't overweight, but I was literally feeling sick all the time. He said I couldn't have a bite every once in awhile and wasn't trying to shame me, just trying to help me feel better. And believe me, all I wanted was to feel good enough to make it through a day. I went cold on getting rid of sugar. It wasn't easy and it wasn't the time when they had things that were sugar-free without fake sweeteners. He said. If you're going to have, thanks sweetener you might as well eat sugar! I truly believe that we are engineered to eat sugar because of everything it is in and the food industry is out there to get us. There is so much sugar in everything! After limiting my sugar intake, I started to feel better. I actually had to have surgery, a colostomy, that cured the problem, but when I went back to trying to eat anything sugary I literally felt sick. Sick. After a couple of bites I couldn't handle it. Desserts don't taste good. It's not like I don't want ice cream every once in awhile, but I am completely convinced with your theory that the food industry makes it so that we get addicted to these foods. People rail against anyone who writes that sugar should be regulated like tobacco. I'm not so sure they are wrong. A little bit in moderation is okay. But people don't realize that sugar is in everything and the industry does it for a reason.
Sheri, so nice to see you commenting here! Thank you for sharing. I agree that just realizing what is in our food (even not-processed foods; it was cool for me to learn about the nutrient profile of so-called "whole" foods, too, once i started paying attention) can be incredibly powerful
this is a very not researched guess but i am also wondering if the ubiquitousness(???) of cigarette smoking may have impacted the weight ppl carried as i heard that it did work as a sort of appetite suppressor in a way.
also saw another comment that said sugar is in literally everything we as americans eat so i am not surprised if we are addicted to sugar without even knowing it
i have seen people point to smoking as well. I wonder what any research might show about this in the years to come considering a lot of people are vaping like crazy ...
I come from an orthorexic background and purposefully ate UPFs during my recovery. But that didn't last long because I felt sluggish and nauseous whenever these products were consistently in my diet. And so, as part of my intuitive-eating journey, I mostly cut them out. But that isn't available to everyone--and this is the part of the story I think you're missing--because it's an incredible privilege to have the time and money to access and prepare food from scratch and near-scratch. Working parents in particular are extremely time-squeezed, and UPFs can be a life-saver as they struggle to not fly off the hamster wheel motorized by dehumanizing economic policies. And when do we reach for the tastiest comfort foods? When we are under the most stress. And Americans, with our only two weeks of paid vacation if we're white collar enough for even that, and our outrageous rents, low wages, and expensive healthcare... we are stressed. I'm not saying poor economic policies are to blame for poor health rather than food companies that know what trash they are purveying. But they are working hand in hand to keep people from maker better choices for themselves. We need to fix both.
Oh one HUNDRED percent. This is one of the systems I’m talking about. I didn’t get into it much here but I completely agree; the fact that UPFs are a life-saver means people should definitely have them if that’s what makes sense for them in terms of time/money/access, but I think it’s awful that these are the foods that are most easy/cheap/available. I wrote a post years ago about the more nutrient dense foods that actually are cheap and readily available at fast food places, bodegas, etc. I’ll have to dig that up. But you’re right that stress is a huge factor here. Chronic stress drives comfort seeking and these foods are an easy comfort.
Hmm Intuitive Eating with any sort of restriction is not Intuitive Eating though... Despite hyperpalatable foods are less nutritionally dense, from personal experience of 3 years of recovery from 15 years of disordered earing, to change a disordered eating or ED mindset you have to let go of all restrictions or you can slip back into disorder because with restrictions you are perpetuating a scarcity mindset - which is instinctual to us humans who fought famines and hardships to get us where we are today. Further stages of IE in recovery do stress the importance of gentle nutrition and really understanding what makes your body feel good and what makes it feel bad. However, it's difficult to reach that stage without allowing all foods, which unfortunately includes these hyperpalatable ones. It's a true tragedy that our food system has become so focused on profit at the expense of consumers (classic capitalism) but for those who may be in recovery or exploring it, I feel it's important to divorce yourself from categorizing different foods as "good for you" or "bad for you" until you reach a more safe place with food. IE is a slowwww and scary process but understanding why IE is "structured" the way it is, is key. I know this is not the major point of the writing (the topic of which I think is very important btw) but I wrote this for people reading who may be struggling with an ED or IE and may be sensitive to the comments on restriction. Important to remember good health is a balance of your mental and physical health. Mental is just as important even if it means being a little fatter than you'd like. (**Steps off soapbox**).
Thanks for this comment. I really do understand what you're saying and I'm sure this is the right way to think about it for many people. It's just a matter of my personal experience that the more "cold turkey" thing was more helpful in the end. But to be clear, I have not and will not ever cut out all so-called "bad" foods! I love me some "junk food" now and then, and tapping into the anti-diet type of intuition I now feel that I have enabled me to let those foods in. I hope everyone can arrive at it in whatever way works best for them/feels least harmful.
Thank you for thinking of the people who are struggling with ED and IE <3
Really appreciate you and your Substack!
Mikala. Brilliant. Again🤯
Your capacity to hold opposing truths while being honest and open and owning your own experiences without assuming/projecting is truly remarkable.
I’ve encountered countless impressively credentialed mental health professionals who can’t reflect nearly this deeply into the nature/nurture paradox, much less express it so clearly and compassionately to others.
As a person who in recovery from numerous addictions and disordered eating—as a result of severe, violent childhood trauma!—your perspective has consistently been such a beautiful gift to behold.
It’s incredibly heavy to contend with the knowing that what is absolutely not our fault remains our responsibility nonetheless. Thank you for both inheriting and developing the incredible strength it requires to hold the Truth.
“we are being well and truly fucked by the American system that has engineered, mass marketed, and made spectacularly abundant the kind of food that is more likely than any other to annihilate your ability to nourish yourself and make your life harder.”🔥
Grace Fierce, my favorite commenter name!!! lol thank you :)
So much great research in here, along with your unmistakable voice and fearlessness. Always a goddamn pleasure
:sob: