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Size Diversity - Find Your Healthy Size | #OWNSHOW | Oprah Online

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Body Positivity or Body Obsession? Learning to See More & Be More | Lindsay Kite | TEDxSaltLakeCity

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Abstract

Objective: Examine a model that encourages health at every size as opposed to weight loss. The health at every size concept supports homeostatic regulation and eating intuitively (ie, in response to internal cues of hunger, satiety, and appetite).

Design: Six-month, randomized clinical trial; 2-year follow-up.

Subjects: White, obese, female chronic dieters, aged 30 to 45 years (N=78).

Setting: Free-living, general community.

Interventions: Six months of weekly group intervention (health at every size program or diet program), followed by 6 months of monthly aftercare group support.

Main outcome measures: Anthropometry (weight, body mass index), metabolic fitness (blood pressure, blood lipids), energy expenditure, eating behavior (restraint, eating disorder pathology), and psychology (self-esteem, depression, body image). Attrition, attendance, and participant evaluations of treatment helpfulness were also monitored.

Statistical analysis performed: Analysis of variance.

Results: Cognitive restraint decreased in the health at every size group and increased in the diet group, indicating that both groups implemented their programs. Attrition (6 months) was high in the diet group (41%), compared with 8% in the health at every size group. Fifty percent of both groups returned for 2-year evaluation. Health at every size group members maintained weight, improved in all outcome variables, and sustained improvements. Diet group participants lost weight and showed initial improvement in many variables at 1 year; weight was regained and little improvement was sustained.

Conclusions: The health at every size approach enabled participants to maintain long-term behavior change; the diet approach did not. Encouraging size acceptance, reduction in dieting behavior, and heightened awareness and response to body signals resulted in improved health risk indicators for obese women.

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Size acceptance and intuitive eating improve health for obese, female chronic dieters - PubMed

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The health at every size approach enabled participants to maintain long-term behavior change; the diet approach did not. Encouraging size acceptance, reduction in dieting behavior, and heightened awareness and response to body signals resulted in improved health risk indicators for obese women.

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Human beings come in a variety of sizes and shapes. We celebrate this diversity as a positive characteristic of the human race.

There is no ideal body size, shape, or weight that every individual should strive to achieve.

Every body is a good body, whatever its size or shape.

Self-esteem and body image are strongly linked. Helping people feel good about their bodies and about who they are can help motivate and maintain healthy behaviors.

Appearance stereotyping is inherently unfair to the individual because it is based on superficial factors which the individual has little or no control over.

We respect the bodies of others even though they might be quite different from our own.

Each person is responsible for taking care of his/her own body.

Good health is not defined by body size; it is a state of physical, mental, and social well-being.

People of all sizes and shapes can reduce their risk of poor health by adopting a healthy lifestyle.

Source: Fact sheet developed by dietitians and nutritionists who are advocates of size acceptance; their efforts coordinated by Joanne P. Ikeda, MA, RD, Nutrition Education Specialist, Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3104. Comments regarding these tenets may be sent to jikeda@garnet.berkeley.edu (7/96)

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Human beings come in a variety of sizes and shapes. We celebrate this diversity as a positive characteristic of the human race. There is no ideal body size, shape, or weight that every individual should strive to achieve. Every body is a good body, whatever its size or shape.

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Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Institute of Psychology, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany

Department of Research Methodology, Diagnostics & Evaluation, Institute of Psychology, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany

Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Institute of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany

Body image disturbance is associated with several mental disorders. Previous research on body image has focused mostly on women, largely neglecting body image in men. Moreover, only a small number of studies have conducted gender comparisons of body image over the lifespan and included participants aged 50 years and older. With regard to measurement, body image has often been assessed only in terms of body dissatisfaction, disregarding further aspects such as body appreciation or the importance of appearance. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to explore different aspects of body image in the general German-speaking population and to compare men and women of various ages. Participants completed an online survey comprising questionnaires about body image. Body dissatisfaction, importance of appearance, the number of hours per day participants would invest and the number of years they would sacrifice to achieve their ideal appearance, and body appreciation were assessed and analyzed with respect to gender and age differences. We hypothesized that body dissatisfaction and importance of appearance would be higher in women than in men, that body dissatisfaction would remain stable across age in women, and that importance of appearance would be lower in older women compared to younger women. Body appreciation was predicted to be higher in men than in women. General and generalized linear models were used to examine the impact of age and gender. In line with our hypotheses, body dissatisfaction was higher in women than in men and was unaffected by age in women, and importance of appearance was higher in women than in men. However, only in men did age predict a lower level of the importance of appearance. Compared to men, women stated that they would invest more hours of their lives to achieve their ideal appearance. For both genders, age was a predictor of the number of years participants would sacrifice to achieve their ideal appearance. Contrary to our assumption, body appreciation improved and was higher in women across all ages than in men. The results seem to suggest that men's and women's body image are dissimilar and appear to vary across different ages.

Introduction

Many people are concerned about at least one part of their body ( 1). A negative cognitive evaluation of one's body can be an expression of a negative body image ( 2). Body image is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct, which encompasses a behavioral component involving body-related behaviors (e.g. checking behaviors), a perceptual component involving the perception of body characteristics (e.g. estimation of one's body size or weight), and a cognitive-affective component involving cognitions, attitudes, and feelings toward one's body ( 3- 6).

Negative thoughts and feelings about one's body are defined as body dissatisfaction ( 7), which is considered to be the most important global measure of stress related to the body ( 4). Body dissatisfaction has been found to be a predictor for the development of an eating disorder ( 8) and occurs in individuals with different mental disorders, such as binge eating disorder or social anxiety disorder (e.g. 6, 9), as well as in healthy persons (e.g. 10- 12). It represents one of the two poles of the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum of body image disturbance ( 4), which encompasses measures of satisfaction (e.g. being satisfied with particular body areas; e.g. 13) and dissatisfaction (e.g. weight or muscle dissatisfaction; e.g. 14, 15).

In the past, studies have investigated the impact of gender and age on body features related to the cognitive-affective component. Specifically, research on body dissatisfaction has shown that girls and female adolescents (e.g. 21- 24), and women of all ages (e.g. 12, 25, 26) report body dissatisfaction. While some studies revealed that the level of body dissatisfaction varied across different age groups ( 27, 28), others found that body dissatisfaction remained quite stable across the adult lifespan in females ( 20, 25, 29, 30). Studies examining other aspects of the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum, such as weight dissatisfaction ( 15, 31) or satisfaction with particular body parts ( 13, 32), also found body dissatisfaction in women. Frederick and colleagues ( 33) estimated that 20% to 40% of women are dissatisfied with their bodies. Nevertheless, body dissatisfaction is also reported in men, suggesting that 10% to 30% of men show body dissatisfaction ( 33) or 69% of male adolescents to be dissatisfied with their bodies in terms of their weight ( 34). Frederick and colleagues ( 14) even reported that 90% of male US students in their sample described themselves as being dissatisfied with respect to muscularity. In terms of body evaluation, striving for increased muscularity, referred to as drive for muscularity ( 35), has emerged as a central issue for boys and men (e.g. 35- 38). It was shown to be distinct from body dissatisfaction ( 39). However, although previous studies reported that body dissatisfaction does not differ across age in women, it remains unclear whether the level of body dissatisfaction changes across age in men.

With respect to body appreciation, Tiggemann and McCourt ( 20) demonstrated higher body appreciation in older than in younger women. Furthermore, high body appreciation was found to be protective against the negative effects of media exposure to thin models in women ( 43). Other studies reported that body appreciation in men and women was associated with a low level of consumption of Western and appearance-focused media ( 44) and correlated negatively with internalization of sociocultural ideals ( 45). However, studies focusing on age differences regarding body appreciation in males are lacking.

Previous studies on body image have mostly considered age-related changes in either men or women, or in particular age groups (e.g. college students, adolescents). Only a limited number of studies have compared men and women with respect to the aforementioned aspects of body image. These studies generally found greater body dissatisfaction in females than in males (e.g. 29, 30, 46- 49). Men (vs. women) seem to place less importance on their appearance ( 42, 50, 51) and report slightly higher levels of body appreciation (e.g. 45, 52- 54). Tylka and Wood-Barcalow ( 55) also reported higher body appreciation in college men (vs. college women), but were unable to replicate this effect in a community sample. In contrast to this latter result, Swami and colleagues ( 53) reported higher body appreciation in men than in women in a sample from the general Austrian population. However, these studies comparing men and women did not analyze their data with respect to the impact of age.

Only a small number of studies have investigated the effect of age and gender on body dissatisfaction, importance of appearance and body appreciation. In a two-year longitudinal study, Mellor and colleagues ( 56) found that body dissatisfaction was higher in females than in males and higher in younger than in older participants. In another longitudinal study, Keel and colleagues ( 15) examined men and women over a period of 20 years. As men aged, the authors observed increasing weight and increasing weight dissatisfaction, while weight dissatisfaction decreased in women despite analogous increases in weight. The authors concluded that women appear to be more accepting of their weight as they age ( 15). Unfortunately, the mean age at the 20-year follow-up was only 40 years, meaning that conclusions could not be drawn about the whole adult lifespan. Similarly, in a large sample of men and women aged 18 to 49 years, Ålgars et al. ( 46) found that overall body dissatisfaction was higher in women than in men, but that only in women was age associated with decreasing body dissatisfaction, while in men, body dissatisfaction changed across the different age groups ( 46). However, these results have to be interpreted with caution, as the sample consisted of twins and was thus not representative of the general population.

Other studies found higher levels of body dissatisfaction ( 28) and lower levels of satisfaction with certain body areas ( 29) in women than in men. However, the latter study did not find any gender- or age-related effect on overall body dissatisfaction ( 29). Concerning the importance of appearance, Öberg and Tornstam ( 42) found that women placed more importance on their appearance than did men, and that this factor remained stable across different age groups in women but varied in men. These results are contrary to the findings of Tiggemann and Lynch ( 41) and Pliner et al. ( 40), who found that the importance of appearance decreased with age in women. However, this discrepancy may be due to the assessment method in the study by Öberg and Tornstam, as they used a single item to evaluate the importance of appearance. Hence, the development of importance of appearance in men and women across the lifespan remains unclear.

Although, as mentioned above, some studies have found that women place less importance on their appearance as they age ( 40, 41), this aspect has not been examined in a large population sample comprising different age groups in relation to the impact of gender and age. Furthermore, studies comparing body appreciation between men and women across different age groups are lacking. To our knowledge, no previous study has examined body dissatisfaction, importance of appearance and body appreciation in the general population including men and women aged 16 to 50 years and older. Therefore, the present study aims to fill this research gap by analyzing these negative and positive aspects of body image in a general population sample considering gender and age.

First, based on the previous findings outlined above, we predicted that body dissatisfaction would be higher in women than in men (Hypothesis 1) and would remain stable across age in women (Hypothesis 2). As no previous study has investigated body dissatisfaction across the whole lifespan in men, we aimed to examine a potential influence of age on body dissatisfaction in men.

Second, we hypothesized that women would place more importance on their appearance than men (Hypothesis 3), but that in line with the aforementioned studies, across age, older women would report lower levels of importance than younger women (Hypothesis 4). Given the lack of corresponding studies in men, we intended to investigate the importance of appearance and its relation to age in men in an exploratory analysis. Furthermore, appearance orientation assesses the importance of appearance in terms of the extent of investment in one's appearance (e.g. grooming behaviors) and in terms of the attention one pays to one's appearance. However, it does not quantify how many hours or years people would be willing to invest in their appearance to look the way they want to. Therefore, as a measure of the importance of appearance, we additionally assessed the number of hours men and women would be willing to invest per day to achieve their ideal appearance, and the number of years of their life they would sacrifice to achieve their ideal appearance.

Third, we predicted that body appreciation would be higher in men than in women (Hypothesis 5). As the aforementioned studies examined gender differences without analyzing the impact of age, we aimed to investigate potential changes in body appreciation across age in an exploratory manner.

Materials and Methods

Participants

Inclusion criteria were age 16 years and older, sufficient German-language skills, and internet access. Data were collected from N = 1,338 persons. From the original data set, n = 4 participants had to be excluded due to ambiguous details about their age or invalid responses to questions. Moreover, n = 7 persons were excluded as they did not fit into the binary gender categories male or female. The final study sample comprised n = 942 women and n = 385 men, aged 16 to 88 years (total sample: n = 1,327).

Measures

Demographic Data

All participants completed a questionnaire assessing demographic data such as gender, age, height and weight, educational level, relationship status, sexual orientation, and number of children. The item on sexual orientation was optional. Self-reported weight and height were used to calculate the body mass index (BMI, kg/m ²).

Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire-Appearance Scales

The Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire-Appearance Scales [MBSRQ-AS; ( 16); German-language version: ( 17)] is a self-report questionnaire consisting of 34 items and five subscales to assess different appearance-related aspects of body image. The MBSRQ-AS has been validated for participants aged 15 years and older and for both men and women ( 16). For the purpose of this study, the Appearance Evaluation Scale (seven items) and Body Areas Satisfaction Scale (nine items) were used to assess body dissatisfaction, and the Appearance Orientation Scale (12 items) was applied to examine the importance people place on their appearance. According to Cash ( 16), the Appearance Evaluation Scale measures overall satisfaction/dissatisfaction with one's appearance and physical attractiveness, with high scores indicating body satisfaction and low scores indicating body dissatisfaction. Furthermore, the Body Areas Satisfaction Scale (nine items) assesses satisfaction/dissatisfaction with particular body areas; high and low scores are analogous to the Appearance Evaluation Scale. The Appearance Orientation Scale (12 items) evaluates the investment in one's appearance, with low scores indicating that people do not place importance on or invest much effort into being "good-looking". All items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale with different response labeling ( Appearance Evaluation Scale and Appearance Orientation Scale: 1 = definitely disagree to 5 = definitely agree; Body Areas Satisfaction Scale: 1 = very dissatisfied to 5 = very satisfied). While the English-language version has been validated in both men and women ( 16), the German-language version has only been validated for females ( 17). In the German validation, all subscales showed good internal consistency (α = .78-.90; 17). In the current sample, high internal consistencies were found ( Appearance Evaluation Scale: α = .88; Appearance Orientation Scale: α = .85; Body Areas Satisfaction Scale: α = .81), both for men ( Appearance Evaluation Scale: α = .87; Appearance Orientation Scale: α = .85; Body Areas Satisfaction Scale: α = .80) and women ( Appearance Evaluation Scale: α = .89; Appearance Orientation Scale: α = .86; Body Areas Satisfaction Scale: α = .81).

Body Appreciation Scale-2

The Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2; 55; German-language version: Steinfeld, unpublished manuscript) assesses body appreciation in a gender-neutral manner using 10 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = never to 5 = always). High internal consistency (α = .96) was found for the BAS-2 in an English-speaking sample of men and women ( 55). In our sample, internal consistency was high (α = .94), both in males (α = .92) and females (α = .94).

Investment in One's Appearance

To investigate the amount of time which men and women would be willing to invest in and sacrifice for their own appearance, participants were asked the following two questions: "How many years of your life would you be willing to sacrifice if you could look the way you want?", "How many hours a day would you invest in your appearance if you could look the way you want?"

Single-Item Self-Esteem Scale

The Single-Item Self-Esteem Scale (SISE; 59) measures self-esteem using the item "I have high self-esteem," which is rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not very true of me to 5 = very true of me). It has shown high correlations with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and a high test-retest reliability after four years ( r = .75) ( 59).

Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-Depression Subscale

Study Procedure

Participants were recruited via social media, mailing lists, press releases, advertisements, and flyers and were asked to take part in a short online survey comprising different questionnaires about body image. To access the study website, they could either scan a barcode or use a web link. The online survey was set up using the software Unipark (Version EFS Winter 2018; 62). Participants were informed about the purpose of the study and were asked to provide their informed consent by clicking a button next to a declaration asserting that they agree to the processing of their personal data according to the given information. The survey began once participants had provided consent and took approximately 10 min to complete. Participants were offered no financial compensation for study participation. The research project was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the ethics committee of Osnabrück University.

Data Analysis

Data analysis was performed using the software SPSS Statistics (version 25; IBM 63) for descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and general linear models and the software R (version 3.5.3; R 64) with the DHARMa package (version 0.2.4; 65), the glmmTMB package (version 0.2.3; 66), and the MASS package (version 7.3-51.3; 67) for generalized linear models. As we intended to explore homogenous hypotheses in terms of body dissatisfaction, the power was set at a significance level of p = .10 for the variable age.

For group comparisons on demographic and descriptive variables ( Table 1), we calculated Mann-Whitney U Tests, as our data were not normally distributed (except BMI). Since inferential statistics for simple comparisons are massively overpowered in such large samples, we additionally report effect sizes. For better interpretability, U-values were converted into correlation coefficients r ( 68, 69). For correlations between BMI and the body image variables ( Table 3), Spearman's rank correlations were calculated due to non-normally distributed data.

Table 1 Descriptive statistics and group comparisons regarding age, height, weight, BMI, depression, and self-esteem.

For linear and generalized linear models, gender was dummy-coded, with men as the reference category. Age was centered to simplify the interpretation of the model coefficients. Due to missing data on single items within the questionnaires, the sample sizes for the initial model estimations varied, since participants were only included in the respective data analysis if they answered all items of a scale. To examine the individual impact of gender and age for each dependent variable, we started with the general linear model and inspected the residual distributions, tested statistically and by visual inspection for normality, and tested for homogeneity of variance as well as for skewness, kurtosis, and outliers (Mahalanobis and Cook's distance, Leverage). While Cook's distance should be smaller than 1 ( 70) and Leverage for large samples <3 k/ N ( 71), a value was identified as an outlier if the Mahalanobis distances were above the critical χ ² value exceeding the probability of 0.01 ( 72) and if studentized deleted residuals were larger than 3 standard deviations. The highest number of outliers was detected for the Body Areas Satisfaction Scale, with 3.36%. Comparisons of the models with and without outliers revealed no substantial differences; hence, we report the models without potential outliers, as power issues were not expected for such a large sample size and precision of estimates was prioritized. Final sample sizes are reported for each model ( Tables 4 and 5).

For the Body Areas Satisfaction Scale, the assumption of homogeneity was violated. Therefore, a general linear model was calculated, using the HC3 method for robust estimation of the standard errors. Furthermore, due to skewness and non-normal distribution of the data, responses to the Body Appreciation Scale-2 were inverted and a generalized linear model with a gamma distribution and identity link function was used. The analyses of hours people would invest in their appearance and years people would sacrifice from their lives indicated severe violations of the assumptions of the general linear model, since their distributions were similar to zero-bounded count data. Therefore, the numbers of hours and years were rounded to integer values to enable us to calculate several Poisson and negative binomial regression models, which are suitable for count data. The fit of each model was assessed by tests for overdispersion and zero inflation, as well as by tests of residual fit using the DHARMa package. As a final model for the analyses of the years people would sacrifice from their lives, we used a negative binomial regression with a log-link and linearly increasing variance ( 73) and adjustment for zero inflation for the intercept using the glmmTMB package. For the analyses of the hours people would spend on their appearance, we used a negative binomial regression with the log-link function using the MASS package.

Results

Sample Characteristics

Descriptive statistics and group differences are shown in Table 1. Men and women differed significantly in terms of age, height, weight, BMI, and self-esteem. Compared to women, men were slightly older, taller, and heavier and had a higher BMI. This is in line with data from the German Federal Statistical Office ( 57), which reported a mean weight of 68.7 kg, a mean height of 166 cm and a mean BMI of 25.1 in German women, and a mean weight of 85.0 kg, a mean height of 179 cm and a mean BMI of 26.1 in German men. As indicators of psychopathology, men and women did not differ regarding depressive mood over the past week ( p = .152), whereas self-esteem was higher in men than in women.

Information about educational level, relationship status, number of children, and sexual orientation is reported in Table 2. Of the total sample, n = 29 participants (of whom n = 23 were female) refused to answer the question regarding sexual orientation, and n = 3 participants (of whom n = 1 was female) did not state whether they had children. A recent study on the proportion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) persons in Europe reported that 7.40% of the German population identify themselves as LGBT ( 74). In our sample, 10.17% reported a sexual orientation other than heterosexuality, which is slightly higher than the reported value for the German population, but can be still considered as representative.

Table 2 Numbers and percentages regarding educational level, relationship status, and sexual orientation for total sample, women, and men.

The Spearman's rank correlations of BMI with body dissatisfaction, importance of appearance, the number of hours per day participants would invest and years they would sacrifice to achieve their ideal appearance, and body appreciation are displayed in Table 3.

Table 3 Spearman's correlations between BMI and the scores on the scales Appearance Evaluation, Body Areas Satisfaction, Appearance Orientation, the number of hours per day participants would invest to achieve their ideal appearance, and the number of years participants would sacrifice to achieve their ideal appearance and Body Appreciation for total sample, women, and men.

General and Generalized Linear Models

Table 4 presents the descriptive statistics for appearance evaluation, body areas satisfaction, appearance orientation, hours of investment, and years of sacrifice, as well as body appreciation, separated for total sample, men, and women. The results of the general and the generalized linear models are displayed in Table 5. Regarding body dissatisfaction, gender emerged as the only significant predictor of appearance evaluation ( t = −2.012, p = .044) and body areas satisfaction ( t = 4.282, p < .001), indicating lower appearance evaluation and lower body areas satisfaction in women than in men. Age (appearance evaluation: t = −1.489, p = .137; body areas satisfaction: t = −1.605, p = .109) and the interaction of age × gender (appearance evaluation: t = 1.630, p = .103; body areas satisfaction: t = 1.257, p = .209) did not reach statistical significance. In terms of the importance of appearance, gender ( t = 6.597, p < .001), age ( t = −3.636, p < .001), and the interaction of gender × age ( t = 3.194, p < .001) significantly predicted appearance orientation, revealing that women placed more importance on their appearance than did men, whereas age only influenced the importance of appearance in men. The number of hours which participants would spend on their appearance if they could achieve their ideal appearance was predicted by gender ( z = 2.037, p = .042) and age ( z = −4.654, p < .001), indicating that women would invest more hours than men, but that with higher age, both genders would invest fewer hours in their appearance. The interaction of gender × age ( z = 0.428, p = .67) was not significant. Age was the only predictor of the number of years participants would be willing to sacrifice to achieve their ideal appearance ( z = −5.828, p < .001), revealing that with higher age, men and women would sacrifice fewer years for their ideal appearance. Neither gender ( z = −0.526, p = .60) nor the interaction of gender × age ( z = 1.015, p = .310) had a significant impact on the number of years. Furthermore, gender ( t = 2.828, p = .005) and the interaction of gender × age ( t = −2.186, p = .029) were significant predictors of body appreciation, insofar as with higher age, women reported higher body appreciation than men, while body appreciation in men remained stable with higher age. Age ( t = 0.127, p = . 899) did not reach statistical significance.

Table 4 Descriptive statistics regarding the scores on the scales Appearance Evaluation, Body Areas Satisfaction, Appearance Orientation, hours of investment, and years of sacrifice, as well as Body Appreciation for total sample, women and men used in the final models.

Table 5 General linear models for the prediction of Appearance Evaluation, Body Areas Satisfaction and Appearance Orientation as well as generalized linear models for the prediction of Body Appreciation, the number of hours per day participants would invest to achieve their ideal appearance, and the number of years participants would sacrifice to achieve their ideal appearance, with gender and age as predictors.

Discussion

The aim of the present study was to investigate potential gender differences and the impact of age on body dissatisfaction, importance of appearance, the number of hours per day participants would invest and the number of years they would sacrifice to achieve their ideal appearance, and body appreciation in the general population.

As predicted in our first hypothesis, we found an effect of gender on the Appearance Evaluation Scale and the Body Areas Satisfaction Scale, suggesting that women were significantly more dissatisfied with their bodies than men. This is in accordance with the results of several studies (e.g. 28, 30, 46, 56), which likewise reported higher levels of body dissatisfaction in women than in men. In line with our results, Fallon and colleagues ( 29) found that women (vs. men) reported higher levels of body dissatisfaction on the Body Areas Satisfaction Scale, but contrary to our study, the authors did not find an effect of gender on the Appearance Evaluation Scale. Keel et al. ( 15) even found higher weight dissatisfaction in men than in women, which is also in contrast to previous findings. Therefore, it might be possible that women may be more satisfied with their weight while still reporting more body dissatisfaction.

Additionally, we found that body dissatisfaction on the Appearance Evaluation Scale and on the Body Areas Satisfaction Scale was not influenced by age or by the interaction of gender and age, indicating that body dissatisfaction remains stable across all ages for both genders. For women, this finding confirms our second hypothesis, which assumed that body dissatisfaction would not be influenced by age, and also supports previous findings (e.g. 20, 25, 29, 30). One study by Öberg and Tornstam ( 42) found that body satisfaction was higher in older than in younger women, which is also in contrast to our findings, as we found no influence of age on body dissatisfaction. For men, our results indicate that body dissatisfaction remains stable across different ages. This is in contrast to Ålgars and colleagues ( 46), who found that body dissatisfaction varied across different age groups in men. However, the latter finding might be attributable to artificial grouping strategies, as the authors investigated the impact of the continuous variable age as a categorical variable through the use of age groups. Moreover, Ålgars and colleagues ( 46) only assessed participants between the age of 18 and 49 years. The present study included men and women aged from 16 to 88 years, thus covering a broader proportion of the lifespan in Germany; according to the German Federal Statistical Office ( 75), the average life expectancy lies at 78.4 years for men and 83.2 years for women. To sum up, body dissatisfaction seems to remain relatively stable across different ages, both for men and for women.

In line with our third hypothesis that women would place more importance on their appearance than men, we found a significant effect of gender on the Appearance Orientation Scale, indicating that women indeed place more importance on their appearance compared to men. This finding corroborates previous studies ( 42, 50, 51). Moreover, age was a significant predictor of appearance orientation, as was the interaction of gender and age. Although age and the interaction of gender and age reached statistical significance, only in men did higher age bring about a lower importance of appearance. For women, the regression weights of age and the interaction of gender and age cancelled each other out. Therefore, gender was the only factor to impact appearance orientation in women, and the importance of appearance was not affected by age in women. This is in contrast to our fourth hypothesis that older women would report lower levels of importance of appearance than younger women. It also conflicts with previous findings ( 40, 41), as we found that appearance orientation remained stable across all ages in women. In line with our finding, Öberg and Tornstam ( 42) also reported that the importance of appearance remained stable in women of different ages. They further found a small variation of the importance of appearance across different age groups in men, with the level of importance being more pronounced from the age of 45 years and older ( 42). However, we observed that older men seem to place less importance on their appearance than do younger men.

As the construct of importance of appearance does not reflect the extent to which people are willing to invest time in order to reach their ideal appearance, we additionally assessed the amount of hours per day participants would invest, and the number of years of their lives they would sacrifice, in order to achieve their ideal appearance. We found an effect of gender and age on the number of hours spent on appearance, but only an effect of age on the number of years which participants would sacrifice for their appearance. Women were more likely to spend more hours per day on their ideal appearance than men. However, older men and women would invest fewer hours than their younger counterparts. Concerning the number of years people would be willing to sacrifice to achieve their ideal appearance, we found no effect of gender, but found age to be a significant predictor, meaning that older men and women would sacrifice fewer years from their lives for the sake of their ideal appearance. This indicates that in terms of their behavioral investment regarding the importance of appearance, men and women may be more similar than hitherto assumed. Apparently, women might find it easier to relinquish a small number of hours per day to be invested in their appearance compared to men, but regarding lifetime investment, both genders might be unwilling to sacrifice years of their lives for the sake of their appearance.

Furthermore, we examined the impact of gender and age on body appreciation, and found gender and the interaction of gender and age to be significant predictors. The significant effect of gender suggested that women showed less body appreciation than did men. This is in line with our fifth hypothesis that women would show lower levels of body appreciation than men, and is also in accordance with other studies ( 45, 53, 76). However, the significant interaction of gender and age indicates that with higher age, women report higher levels of body appreciation compared to men. This is in contrast to the aforementioned studies (e.g. 45, 53, 76), but may provide an explanation for the lack of a gender effect in an English-speaking community sample in the study by Tylka and Wood-Barcalow ( 55). Interestingly, compared to our study, Tylka and Wood-Barcalow ( 55) reported slightly higher values (from 3.22 to 3.97) for their samples for both genders. Furthermore, the significant interaction in our study suggested that body appreciation also improves in women across age, and older (vs. younger) women report higher levels of body appreciation. This is in line with Tiggemann and McCourt ( 20), who found greater body appreciation in older than in younger women. Regarding men, as pointed out above, no previous study has investigated the impact of age on body appreciation. In our study, the level of body appreciation remained quite stable across different ages in men, and was lower compared to that of women. An explanation might be that men are possibly more affected by restrictions of their body's functionality due to aging processes ( 27), whereas women may cherish their body and the remaining functionality.

With respect to the associations between BMI and the aspects of body image, we found significant negative correlations between BMI and the Appearance Evaluation Scale and Body Areas Satisfaction Scale for men and women, insofar as with increasing BMI, values on both scales decreased (= higher body dissatisfaction). This is in line with previous research, which found that BMI was positively associated with body dissatisfaction in both genders (e.g. 77- 81). Body appreciation was found to be negatively correlated with BMI for both genders, which is partially in line with previous research: One study found this association for women but not for men ( 53), while other studies yielded mixed findings, reporting either a negative association between BMI and body appreciation (e.g. 82, 83) or no significant results (e.g. 44). Concerning the importance of appearance, we found no significant association with BMI for either gender. In line with our results, some previous studies found no association between the importance of appearance and BMI in both men and women ( 13, 84), while others reported a positive correlation for women but no significant association for men ( 85). The latter may be explained by the differentiation between the importance of appearance and the investment of time in appearance, as we found that BMI was positively associated with the number of invested hours for both genders, but was only associated with the number of years participants would sacrifice to achieve their ideal appearance in women. These findings emphasize the distinction between the evaluative perspective of the importance of appearance (How essential are my looks to me)? and the behavioral perspective of the extent of investment in appearance (How many hours/years am I willing to invest in my appearance)?. For instance, a person may place importance on his or her appearance, but as appearance is less important than years of his or her life, he or she is unwilling to invest much effort in appearance. As shown in our study, women reported quite stable, higher levels of importance across age than did men. Consequently, it might be assumed that they have to invest more time in order to achieve their ideal appearance. Nevertheless, as older men and women would invest fewer hours and sacrifice fewer years, the extent of investment or sacrifice is evidently not expressed by the importance of appearance. These results underline the need to differentiate between the importance of appearance and the investment of time in one's appearance.

In consideration of all of the aforementioned research, one has to raise the more general question of whether the absence of body dissatisfaction is synonymous with the presence of body satisfaction in terms of a continuum model as proposed by Thompson et al. ( 4). Another possibility lies in an alternative model, in which body satisfaction and body dissatisfaction coexist alongside one another. For instance, it may be possible for a person to report high levels of overall body dissatisfaction, while simultaneously reporting high levels of body satisfaction with certain areas (e.g. "In general, I am dissatisfied with my body, but I like my legs, my cheeks and my hair."). This could result in neither agreement nor disagreement on a continuum scale. Further research is needed to investigate a possible coexistence of both concepts.

Some limitations have to be mentioned when interpreting the results of the present study. Although several coefficients turned out to be significant, they contribute only a minimum of change to the dependent variables. In addition, according to the conventions of Cohen ( 86), we found very small values for the R ²s, as the R ²s in the present study explained only 0.5% (appearance evaluation) up to 5.2% (appearance orientation) of the total variance. Due to our total sample size of N = 1,327, the significance of the coefficients therefore might be attributed to the study's power. Moreover, as was the case for most of the previous studies (except for 15 and 56), we did not investigate age effects in a longitudinal design. Therefore, it is not possible to disentangle the effects of age and birth cohorts. The effects found in this study may be related to different birth cohorts, the way in which people were brought up and socialized, or different ideals of beauty and fashion. Longitudinal studies including different age cohorts of men and women are therefore required.

Furthermore, our sample included more women than men. This may reflect the fact that women are more likely to participate in studies than men (e.g. 89, 90). Although general and generalized linear models are able to control for different sample sizes, men and women differed significantly regarding age, height, weight, and self-esteem. While the differences in weight and height could be explained by natural gender differences, men were slightly older than women. As a further limitation, the assessment was restricted to certain body-related aspects and omitted other concepts such as the drive for muscularity ( 35) or drive for thinness ( 91). We only included appearance-related aspects of body image and body appreciation in order to shorten the length of our study and to decrease the burden of our survey on respondents. Therefore, we concentrated on more general aspects related to the cognitive-affective component of body image. Future studies need to investigate the impact of gender and age on other components of body image, such as perceptual estimation of body size (e.g. 92) or checking behaviors (e.g. 93). Although some studies have already investigated body image regarding genders other than the distinct categories of male and female (e.g. 94, 95), we did not analyze these persons in the present study due to the insufficient sample size ( N = 7). Moreover, we did not investigate the relation between sexual orientation and body image, although previous studies have found indications of an influence of sexual orientation on body image ( 96- 99). Therefore, future research should investigate the impact of age on body image for different sexual orientations.

In conclusion, the present study is one of the first to examine body dissatisfaction, importance of appearance, the number of hours participants would be willing to invest per day to achieve their ideal appearance and the number of years they would sacrifice to achieve their ideal appearance, and body appreciation in relation to gender and age. Body appreciation was higher in older than in younger women and women reported higher levels of body appreciation compared to men. While the importance of appearance was lower in older than in younger men and remained stable in women, neither gender was willing to relinquish a large amount of time for the sake of their appearance. Although we found higher body dissatisfaction for women than for men, both genders seem to be neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with their bodies on average. Eating disorder prevention programs, or therapeutic approaches for several mental disorders, could benefit from a more functional perspective on the absence of body satisfaction, as this does not necessarily equate with the presence of body dissatisfaction.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Ethics committee of Osnabrück University. Written informed consent from the participants' legal guardian/next of kin was not required to participate in this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.

Author Contributions

HQ, SV, AH, and UB planned and conducted the study. RD and HQ analyzed the data. HQ wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the compilation of the manuscript and read and approved the submitted version.

Funding

We acknowledge support by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Open Access Publishing Fund of Osnabrück University for the publication of the article.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

References

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Body Dissatisfaction, Importance of Appearance, and Body Appreciation in Men and Women Over the Lifespan

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Body image disturbance is associated with several mental disorders. Previous research on body image has focused mostly on women, largely neglecting body image in men. Moreover, only a small number of studies have conducted gender comparisons of body image over the lifespan and included participants aged 50 years and older.

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Intuitive eating is a philosophy of eating that makes you the expert of your body and its hunger signals.

Essentially, it's the opposite of a traditional diet. It doesn't impose guidelines about what to avoid and what or when to eat.

Instead, it teaches that you are the best person - the only person - to make those choices.

This article is a detailed beginner's guide to intuitive eating.

Intuitive eating is an eating style that promotes a healthy attitude toward food and body image.

The idea is that you should eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full.

Though this should be an intuitive process, for many people it's not.

Trusting diet books and so-called experts about what, when, and how to eat can lead you away from trusting your body and its intuition.

To eat intuitively, you may need to relearn how to trust your body. To do that, you need to distinguish between physical and emotional hunger:

Physical hunger. This biological urge tells you to replenish nutrients. It builds gradually and has different signals, such as a growling stomach, fatigue, or irritability. It's satisfied when you eat any food.

Emotional hunger. This is driven by emotional need. Sadness, loneliness, and boredom are some of the feelings that can create cravings for food, often comfort foods. Eating then causes guilt and self-hatred.

Summary
Intuitive eating is based on physical hunger rather than prescriptions from diet books and experts. Eating should satisfy physical hunger without causing guilt.

The term intuitive eating was coined in 1995 as the title of a book by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. However, the concept has roots in earlier ideas.

Early pioneers include Susie Orbach, who published "Fat is a Feminist Issue" in 1978, and Geneen Roth, who has written about emotional eating since 1982.

Before that, Thelma Wayler founded a weight management program in 1973 called Green Mountain at Fox Run, based in Vermont.

The program was built on the principle that diets don't work and that lifestyle changes and personal care are more important for long-term health.

Summary
Some of the concepts of intuitive eating have been around at least since the early 1970s, though the term wasn't coined until 1995.

In their book on intuitive eating, Tribole and Resch lay out 10 basic principles of the philosophy.

1. Reject the diet mentality

The diet mentality is the idea that there's a diet out there that will work for you. Intuitive eating is the anti-diet.

2. Honor your hunger

Hunger is not your enemy.

Respond to your early signs of hunger by feeding your body. If you let yourself get excessively hungry, then you are likely to overeat.

3. Make peace with food

Call a truce in the war with food.

Get rid of ideas about what you should or shouldn't eat.

4. Challenge the food police

Food is not good or bad and you are not good or bad for what you eat or don't eat.

Challenge thoughts that tell you otherwise.

5. Respect your fullness

Just as your body tells you when it's hungry, it also tells you when it's full.

Listen for the signals of comfortable fullness, when you feel you have had enough. As you're eating, check in with yourself to see how the food tastes and how hungry or full you are feeling.

6. Discover the satisfaction factor

Make your eating experience enjoyable. Have a meal that tastes good to you. Sit down to eat it.

When you make eating a pleasurable experience, you may find it takes less food to satisfy you.

7. Honor your feelings without using food

Emotional eating is a strategy for coping with feelings.

Find ways that are unrelated to food to deal with your feelings, such as taking a walk, meditating, journaling, or calling a friend.

Become aware of the times when a feeling that you might call hunger is really based on emotion.

8. Respect your body

Rather than criticizing your body for how it looks and what you perceive is wrong with it, recognize it as capable and beautiful just as it is.

9. Exercise - feel the difference

Find ways to move your body that you enjoy. Shift the focus from losing weight to feeling energized, strong, and alive.

10. Honor your health - gentle nutrition

The food you eat should taste good and make you feel good.

Remember that it's your overall food patterns that shape your health. One meal or snack isn't going to make or break your health.

Summary
There are 10 basic principles outlined in the "Intuitive Eating" book. They include accepting your body and honoring your feelings of hunger and fullness.

Research on the topic is still growing and has largely focused on women.

Thus far, studies have linked intuitive eating to healthier psychological attitudes, lower body mass index (BMI), and weight maintenance - though not weight loss ().

One of the major benefits of intuitive eating is better psychological health.

Participants in intuitive eating studies improved their self-esteem, body image, and overall quality of life while experiencing less depression and anxiety ( 2).

Intuitive eating interventions also have good retention rates, meaning people are more likely to stick with the program and keep practicing the behavioral changes than they would be on a diet ( 2).

Other studies have looked at women's eating behaviors and attitudes and found that those who show more signs of intuitive eating are less likely to display disordered eating behaviors ( 3).

Summary
Emerging research suggests that intuitive eating is linked to healthier attitudes toward food and self-image, as well as that it can be learned through interventions.

If you think you could benefit from learning more about intuitive eating, there are ways to get started.

Without judgment, start taking stock of your own eating behaviors and attitudes. When you eat, ask yourself if you're experiencing physical or emotional hunger.

If it's physical hunger, try to rank your hunger/fullness level on a scale of 1-10, from very hungry to stuffed. Aim to eat when you're hungry but not starving. Stop when you're comfortably full - not stuffed.

You can also learn more by following some of the experts in the field:

The Intuitive Eating Book. This book, written by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, is the best-seller that made intuitive eating mainstream. It was originally published in 1995 but remains popular to this day.

The Original Intuitive Eating Pro. The website of Evelyn Tribole has more information about intuitive eating.

Geneen Roth. Her website features helpful articles and videos, plus a link to an online class.

Ellyn Satter Institute. Ellyn Satter promotes an idea called "eating competence," which has many principles that overlap with intuitive eating.

You can also find a dietitian who practices and teaches intuitive eating or join a group or class on the topic.

Summary
To get started with intuitive eating, approach your eating habits without judgment and become more aware of how and when you eat. Seek additional resources to learn more about eating intuitively.

With intuitive eating, how you eat is just as important as what you eat.

Letting your own internal cues of hunger and fullness guide your eating can lead to improved body image and quality of life.

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We include products we think are useful for our readers. If you buy through links on this page, we may earn a small commission. Here's our process. Intuitive eating is a philosophy of eating that makes you the expert of your body and its hunger signals. Essentially, it's the opposite of a traditional diet.

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Alissa Rumsey Nutrition | New York Registered Dietitian Nutritionist | Virtual Intuitive Eating Coaching

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Intuitive eating is an approach to health and food that has nothing to do with diets, meal plans, discipline or willpower. It teaches you how to get in touch with your body cues like hunger, fullness and satisfaction while learning to trust your body around food again. Here's an overview of intuitive eating including the science behind it, the ten principles of intuitive eating, and the difference between intuitive eating and mindful eating. For more info on ditching the diet and healing your relationship with food, check out the Intuitive Eating Crash Course.
What Is Intuitive Eating?

Intuitive eating is an approach that was created by two registered dietitians, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, in 1995. Intuitive eating is a non-diet approach to health and wellness that helps you tune into your body signals, break the cycle of chronic dieting and heal your relationship with food. From a nutrition professional perspective, intuitive eating is a framework that helps us keep nutrition interventions behavior-focused instead of restrictive or rule-focused.

We are all born natural intuitive eaters. Babies cry, they eat, and then stop eating until they're hungry again. Kids innately balance out their food intake from week to week, eating when they're hungry and stopping once they feel full. Some days they may eat a ton of food, and other days they may eat barely anything. As we grow older and rules and restrictions are set around food, we lose our inner intuitive eater. We learn to finish everything on our plate. We learn that dessert is a reward, or can be taken away if we misbehave. We are told that certain foods are good for us and others are bad - causing us to feel good about ourselves when we eat certain foods and guilty when we eat others.

Intuitive Eating is not a diet. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. There's no counting calories or macros and no making certain foods off limits. It's not about following a meal plan or measuring out your portions (in fact, that is all discouraged!). Instead, it's about re-learning to eat outside of the diet mentality, putting the focus on your internal cues (aka your intuition) like hunger, fullness and satisfaction, and moving away from external cues like food rules and restrictions.

But intuitive eating is not the ' hunger-fullness diet'. Intuitive eaters give themselves unconditional permission to eat whatever they want without feeling guilty. They rely on their internal hunger and satiety signals and trust their body to tell them when, what and how much to eat. They know when they want to at eat veggies and also when they feel like having dessert (and don't feel guilty or have any regrets with either choice).

The 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating

Intuitive Eating is made up of ten core principles. I've gone into more detail in other blog posts, but here is a quick synopsis of each.

here has your focus on weight loss gotten you to at this point in your life? What has it done to your body? Your mind? It's not about your lack of willpower or about you being a failure. It's the system of dieting that is the problem - diets are a set up for failure. Research shows that the act of 1. Reject the Diet Mentality. Think about it: w dieting increases your risk of gaining weight. Remind yourself: if dieting is the problem, how can it be part of the solution? Reject the idea that there are any good diets out there. Get rid of books and magazines that tout diets and easy or quick weight loss. Unfollow social media accounts that propel the dieting myth and diet behaviors (especially those that make you feel bad about yourself) and instead follow accounts that share positive food and health messaging. For a list of accounts we recommend, click here.

2. Honor Your Hunger. Hunger is not a four-letter word - it is a normal, biological process. Your body needs to know, and to trust, that it consistently will have access to food. If you try to override feelings of hunger and don't eat enough calories and carbohydrates, your body reacts with cravings and binges. Are there times when you feel hunger, but didn't eat? How come? Utilize the hunger-fullness scale to get started with honoring your hunger.

3. Make Peace with Food. Allow all foods into your diet and give yourself unconditional permission to eat whatever you want. Stop categorizing foods as "good" or "bad" - no one food has the power to make you healthy, just like no one food has the power to make you unhealthy. If you tell yourself you can't have or shouldn't have a certain food, you will eventually feel deprived; this deprivation builds into uncontrollable cravings and overeating. When you finally "give in" to that food, you're likely to overeat - since you don't know when you'll be able to have it again. This overeating triggers guilt, which starts the cycle all over again: deprivation or restriction -> cravings and overeating -> feelings of guilt.

4. Challenge the Food Police. The food police are the thoughts in your head that declare you as "good" for eating a salad for lunch and "bad" because you ate dessert/carbs/sugar/etc. These are the unreasonable rules that were created by dieting that cause you to feel guilty. These rules are housed deep in your brain and pop up on a daily basis to govern your food decisions. It's impossible to view eating as a normal, pleasurable activity when the food police have ahold. Challenging the food police is an important step towards becoming an intuitive eater.

5. Feel Your Fullness. Dieting causes us to feel like we "have" to eat at meal times - when it is allowed - so leaving food behind can be difficult. Listen for signals that tell you that you are feeling full and satiated. Pause partway through a meal or snack and check in with your body. How does the food taste? How full do you feel? Bring more consciousness and awareness to your meals. Utilizing the hunger-fullness scale can help, as can this 5-minute mindful eating exercise.

6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor. It's possible to be physically full but not satisfied. If you're unsatisfied you'll probably keep looking for that one thing that is going to make you feel satisfied and content and you're likely to overeat. When you eat what you really want, the feelings of satisfaction and pleasure you feel will help you be content (and often with less food).

7. Cope With Your Emotions Without Using Food. Emotional eating is very common. We often eat for reasons other than physical hunger and food is often used to cover up unpleasant feelings and emotions. While food can certainly be used to sooth or cope with emotions, it can become a problem if a) it's not working to help and/or b) it's the only coping mechanism you have. Building up several different coping skills is an important part of intuitive eating.

8. Respect Your Body. We're so quick to judge ourselves and criticize our bodies. Learning to respect your body for how it is at this moment is an important tenant of Intuitive Eating. If you are too critical of your body and don't accept yourself as you are, it's hard to reject the diet mentality.

9. Exercise - Feel The Difference. Instead of focusing on the exercise you think you "should" be doing, shift your focus to what types of movement feel good to you. Forget about the calorie burning effect of exercise and think about how you feel after working out. Do you feel energized? Do you sleep better? If you use exercise only as a way to lose weight or eat more food, it's not going to be something you will stick with forever.

10. Honor Your Health With Gentle Nutrition. Being healthy doesn't mean eating perfectly. Consider how certain foods make you feel, in addition to how tasty and satisfying they are to you. It's the consistency of what you eat over time - it's not all or nothing. This is the last step of intuitive eating - once you've worked through the other principles you can learn how to embrace gentle nutrition.

The Science Behind Intuitive Eating

There are now over 100 research studies that have shown the benefits of intuitive eating. The studies show that intuitive eating is associated with:

Higher self-esteem

Better body image

More satisfaction with life

Optimism and well-being

Proactive coping skills

Lower body mass indexes

Higher HDL cholesterol levels

Lower Triglyceride levels

Lower rates of emotional eating

Lower rates of disordered eating

What's the Difference Between Intuitive Eating and Mindful Eating?

Before I started training in Intuitive Eating, I used the terms Mindful Eating and Intuitive Eating interchangeably. While this isn't totally incorrect, it's important to note the differences.

The Center for Mindful Eating defines mindful eating as "allowing yourself to become aware of the positive and nurturing opportunities that are available through food selection and preparation by respecting your own inner wisdom" and "using all your senses in choosing to eat food that is both satisfying to you and nourishing to your body and becoming aware of physical hunger and satiety cues to guide your decisions to begin and end eating."

You can tell right there that Intuitive Eating encompasses the principles of mindful eating. However it goes a step further, also addressing the importance of rejecting the dieting mentality, respecting your body (regardless of your weight or shape), coping with emotional eating, and gentle movement and nutrition without judgment. Both mindful eating and Intuitive Eating can be useful tools to help you reach a place of normal eating.

Are you interested in learning more about Intuitive Eating?

We work with clients virtually throughout the US, helping people who are frustrated with dieting change their relationship with food and say goodbye to diets once and for all. Learn more about our intuitive eating coaching programs to see how you can find balance and develop long-term lifestyle habits, no diets required.

Not ready for one-on-one coaching or looking to learn more about intuitive eating on your own? The Intuitive Eating Crash Course is a self-paced online course that walks you through the foundational principles of intuitive eating.

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What Is Intuitive Eating and How Is It Different From Mindful Eating?

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Intuitive eating is an approach to health and food that has nothing to do with diets, meal plans, discipline or willpower. It teaches you how to get in touch with your body cues like hunger, fullness and satisfaction while learning to trust your body around food again.

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Registered Dietitian Columbia SC - Rachael Hartley Nutrition

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Last week I did a big presentation to our state dietetics conference on Intuitive Eating. The practice has blown up in popularity over the past few years with the mainstreaming of body positivity, but there's still a lot of people who are new to the practice, including most of the dietitians and students in the audience that day. I felt so incredibly honored (and a huge sense of responsibility!) to lay a solid framework for people to understand the practice.

In my talk, I discussed Intuitive Eating basics, and what this non-diet approach is, and isn't. While I'm thrilled to see Intuitive Eating getting more publicity, giving more people access to this truly life-saving approach, the rise in popularity has also led to a lot of confusion about the practice, especially for those who are doing most of their learning on instagram. Don't get me wrong, social media is FREE and there are a lot of great resources, but I might jump through the screen the next time I see a trainer hashtag intuitive eating alongside if it fits your macros.

So on that note, I wanted to create a resource that covers the basics of Intuitive Eating - probably something I should have done years ago when I first started training in it! I hope this post serves as a helpful resource for you to share with others, and that it helps fill in any gaps in knowledge.

What is Intuitive Eating?

Intuitive eating is a non-diet approach to eating that emphasizes internal cues over external diet rules. Now, let's break down that jargon. Non-diet means that the focus isn't on the scale, but instead on promoting health-enhancing behaviors, better body image, and a healthier relationship with food. To help guide eating choices, intuitive eating helps you get back in touch with internal cues, like hunger and fullness, cravings, and how food makes you feel. Intuitive eating also helps chip away at diet rules, like what, how much, and when to eat, so you're better able to respond to your internal cues.

We were all born intuitive eaters. Think of babies, who cry when they need food, stop when they're full, then cry when they need to eat again. There's no schedule (unfortunately for tired parents!). They may eat more one day and less the next, but it all balances out. Kids do the same! You might also notice their changing preferences - one day they eat tons of fruit, the next day all they want is pasta with butter. But if you zoom out, they're often getting a variety of foods and enough to support healthy growth - or at least will in an environment with food security and variety.

As we grow up, we're introduced to diet rules. We're forced to clean the plate even if we're full or push it away when we're still hungry. We're told to eat certain foods and to limit others. We also learn that certain bodies are more valued than others, and told that changes to the way we eat can make our body more or less valuable. When this happens, we get away from using internal cues and start listening to external cues about what, how much, and when to eat. This can set off a cascade of unwanted food behaviors including dieting, restricting, binging, emotional eating and obsessing about food. Intuitive eating is a counter to this. It teaches you how to get back to eating the way you were born to.

In short, intuitive eating is normal human being eating.

What are the benefits of Intuitive Eating?

Higher HDL ("good") cholesterol

Lower triglycerides

Lower rates of emotional eating

Lower rates of disordered eating and eating disorders

Higher self-esteem

Better body image

More satisfaction with life

Optimism and well-being

Proactive coping skills

Note that IE has benefits to both physical and mental health. We often talk about nutrition and health in a very clinical way, forgetting that there are people with complex thoughts and emotions who are doing the eating. Mental health is health too, and any dietary change that negatively affects mental health probably isn't actually making you any healthier.

With a non-diet approach like intuitive eating, you're also negating the negative health effects associated with dieting, including the following:

Food and body preoccupation

Weight cycling (i.e. yo-yo'ing)

Lower self-esteem

Eating disorders

Weight stigma/discrimination

Focus on weight vs. sustainable health promoting behaviors

The 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating

Intuitive eating is based on 10 principles, which I will describe below. Note that these are principles, not rules. There's no wrong or right, just basic principles you can incorporate into your life at the pace that suits you and your healing.

Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality

The first principle of intuitive eating is all about rejecting the idea the system of dieting, and the diet mentality that fuels it. YOU are not the reason diets have failed, it's simply a flawed paradigm. There is not a single bit of research suggesting more than a small number of people can lose weight and keep it off permanently. Yes, there are a bazillion weight loss studies, but almost all are less than a year, and most are less than 6 months. Yet one third to two thirds of weight is typically regained within a year, and almost all is usually regained within five years. In fact, you are more likely to gain weight with dieting, as approximately 60% of people who diet gain back more weight than they lost.

This is a place where I feel tempted to throw in a lot of statistics and research (and if you're interested in that, check out Health at Every Size or this TED Talk on why dieting doesn't work), but instead I'd encourage you to reflect on your own dieting history. Has dieting ever helped you sustainably improve your health? Live a life in line with your values? Or, has it set you on a spiral of dieting, restricting, giving in to a craving, shame and guilt, binging, and then starting all over Monday?

Resources: What Are You Missing Out On By Dieting, Are You Lowkey Dieting?, How to Challenge Diet Mentality, 15 Things You Can Do When You're Not Dieting, 13 Experts Explain Why Diets Don't Work

Principle 2: Honor Your Hunger

This principle focuses on learning to feed your body adequately throughout the day with energy and carbohydrates. Firstly, your body simply deserves to be fed adequately, and functions best when it is. But also, underfeeding often results in a primal hunger that fuels a drive to overeat, as well as impulsive choices around food. Feeding your body adequately may sound super simple, but it's also a game changer! In my practice, I've had many clients notice eating concerns or digestive issues almost completely resolve simply from fueling more adequately. This principle also teaches you how to identify the more subtle signs of hunger. Years of suppressing hunger through dieting and restriction can make hunger cues a bit wonky, so intuitive eating includes practices to get back in touch with those cues.

Resources: Tuning in to Hunger and Fullness Cues, On Practical Hunger, Beyond the Hunger Fullness Scale, Treat Your Body Kindly By Feeding It

Principle 3: Make Peace with Food

Making peace means giving yourself permission to eat all the foods you enjoy, including those that may have been off-limits. Telling yourself you can't have a certain food just leads to uncontrollable cravings. When you do eat the forbidden food, eating might feel quite intense. We call this Last Supper eating, and it usually results in eating larger quantities or in a way that feels checked out/disconnected because you're not sure when you're going to be allowed to eat that food again. Intermittent access to foods does not allow for you to gain the skills to eat them like a normal human being, and by bringing these foods back in you can begin to gain experiences that help you make peace with them.

After bringing off-limits foods back in, it's really normal to experience a bit of a honeymoon period, where you might be eating a lot more of those foods than normal, and maybe eating isn't quite so nutritionally balanced. This period can last for a short time, or a long time depending on your unique history with food. It's ok! It's really important to go through this period because it allows for you to experience habituation, when those foods start to lose their "special" and become less exciting.

Resources: My Number One Tip to Eat Less Sugar: Bake Cookies, How to Stop Binging on the Weekend

Principle 4: Challenge the Food Police

I like to contrast this principle with "Make Peace with Food." Making peace with food is all about giving yourself physical permission to eat all foods, while challenging the food police is all about giving yourself the emotional permission to eat all foods. With this principle, you're learning to challenge that voice inside your head that tells you that you're being good for eating certain foods, and bad for eating others. It helps you take the moralityout of eating choices.

Part of challenging the food police is nurturing more helpful self talk. You'll learn how to neutrally observe, and speak to yourself in a more nurturing parent voice. By chipping away at the food police, you'll begin to be able to look at nutrition in a more helpful way that's rooted in self care, rather than punishment.

Resources: Food Police or Nutrition Ally, Breaking Old Thought Patterns, The Worst Thing You Can Eat - Shame

Principle 5: Respect Your Fullness

What's that point where you are satisfied, but not stuffed? That's a great place to stop in a meal! There is a very good reason why respect your fullness comes after honoring your hunger and making peace with food - if you're not sure if you're ever going to get a food again, or if you're sitting down to a meal feeling ravenously hungry, it's going to be challenging to honor your hunger. This is a place where mindfulness skills are helpful.

Resources: Beyond the Hunger/Fullness Scale, 5 Mindful Eating Exercises, Tuning in to Hunger and Fullness Cues

Principle 6: Discover the Satisfaction Factor

Pleasure should be a goal of healthful eating. Other cultures value pleasure above health and actually have better health outcomes. And regardless of physical health, everyone has the right to enjoy the food they eat. Enjoying tasty food enhances mental health and is part of the human experience! We were designed to connect with others over food - and I can't imagine connecting with others over a bowl of boring salad with diet dressing!

Also, by intentionally choosing pleasurable food, you're less likely to overeat or experience binges. That might sound counterintuitive, as many people fear they won't be able to stop eating a food if it tastes good. In actuality, by eating enjoyable food and eating more mindfully, you'll start to notice when a food stops tasting good, and be able to stop eating.

Resources: Satisfaction vs. Fullness, hopefully my recipes!

Principle 7: Cope with Your Emotions with or Without Food

I made a little edit to the original principle by adding "with or," but in reading Evelyn and Elyse's more current works, and in doing individual training with Evelyn, I'm fairly confident they're cool with the edit! You see, food is a coping mechanism. It can provide comfort, or distract from uncomfortable emotions. But it's not the most effective coping mechanism, because food rarely helps us deal with the root cause of that uncomfortable emotion. And often, emotional eating can make you feel worse, especially if it leads to a shame spiral. But alas, it is one way to cope, and there are certainly more maladaptive ways of coping with intense emotions! Plus, sometimes food really can make you feel better - think about decompressing after a tough day at work with pizza and beer with friends, or making your favorite mac and cheese recipe from scratch to cheer yourself up when you're feeling depressed.

Buuuuut, we also need to have other coping skills too, because when food is our only coping skill, that's when it becomes a problem. So that's where IE comes in handy, teaching you how to identify the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger, ways to cope with emotions without food, and how to emotionally eat in a more helpful way.

Resources: Emotional Eating is OK, Really, How to Build a Self Care Toolbox for Emotional Eating, How to Cope with Emotions, with or Without Food

Principle 8: Respect Your Body

Body diversity naturally exists. It's part of the rich tapestry of human existence. If you fed 1,000 people exactly the same food in the same amounts, moved their bodies exactly the way for the same amount of time, you would still have 1,000 different body shapes and sizes, and some of those sizes would be fat.

Just like we couldn't diet our feet down to fit a smaller shoe size, we can't expect our body to permanently stay in a smaller size than it's genetic blueprint wants it to be. For all that you hear about BMI and ideal weights, there's no way to predict what weight you're supposed to be. Instead, intuitive eating focuses on behaviors vs. the scale. When you're feeding your body adequately and appropriately, moving it semi-regularly, getting good sleep and managing stress - basically, when you're being a good steward of your body - your weight will settle in the range it's supposed to be in, which may be smaller, bigger, or the same size that you are right now.

Note that the authors use the term "respect." You don't have to love your body to treat it with respect. Body positivity isn't a command, and no matter what barriers you face in accepting and loving your body, you can still start to treat it with more kindness and respect.

Resources: What if I Can't Love My Body?,The Benefits of Body Fat, Dressing Your Here-and-Now Body, The Best Books to Build a Better Body Image, Body Image is About More Than Liking Your Looks, Body Image Through Stages of Life,

Principle 9: Exercise - Feel the Difference

This principle of intuitive eating is all about uncoupling exercise (or movement as I like to call it) from weight loss. When exercise becomes wrapped up in weight control, it often results in overexercise to the point of harm as one tries to militantly burn calories, or exercise avoidance, as exercise becomes a chore. Most frequently, it results in cycling between the two. With intuitive eating, one learns the art of pleasurable movement - moving your body for fun for purposes of self care, not punishment!

Resources: Rediscovering Joy in Movement, Four Tips for More Intuitive Movement, When Exercise Becomes Unhealthy

Principle 10: Honor Your Health with Gentle Nutrition

See, nutrition is part of intuitive eating! It was created by two dietitians after all. There's a good reason gentle nutrition is the last principle - because it's important to heal your relationship with food first, otherwise gentle nutrition can quickly become wrapped up in diet mentality. Gentle nutrition is all about taking a birds-eye view to eating habits. One meal or day of eating won't make or break health, so zoom out to get perspective on eating over time, and consider things like how food makes you feel, and your personal health goals.

Resources: How to Practice Gentle Nutrition in Intuitive Eating, Listening to Your Body in Intuitive Eating Also Means Listening to Your Brain

Myths and Misconceptions About Intuitive Eating

1. You'll lose weight with intuitive eating. With intuitive eating, your body will do one of three things - go down, go up, or stay the same. None of those outcomes say anything about your "success" as an intuitive eater. Anyone who says or suggests differently is distorting intuitive eating, and promising you something they do not have control over and nor do you. If you see someone selling intuitive eating and weight loss (or those insidious diet messages like portion control or clean eating), you have my permission to kick them in the kneecap and run away!

2. Intuitive eating is only for people with eating disorders. Many of the practitioners who use intuitive eating have a background in treating eating disorders, probably because they are more likely to be exposed to it, and have the professional experience that would prime them for it. But intuitive eating is for everyone, eating disorder history or not. Keep in mind, you don't have to be diagnosed with an eating disorder to struggle with your relationship with food - 75% of women engage in disordered eating behaviors.

3. Intuitive eating is not for people with eating disorders. When someone has an active eating disorder, hunger/fullness cues can be quite wonky. But saying someone with an eating disorder can't practice intuitive eating is insinuating that IE is only about hunger and fullness. While honoring hunger and listening to fullness might be out of reach for the moment, that doesn't mean there aren't other principles of IE to engage with, like making peace with food, learning to cope with emotions with or without food, or respecting your body. Here's a post I wrote about intuitive eating in eating disorder recovery.

4. You can't do intuitive eating if you have a dietary restriction. There are many non-diet reasons one might have a dietary restriction, for example celiac disease, a food allergy, religious or cultural practices, or other ethical beliefs. These restrictions, or practices really, can and should be honored within the framework of intuitive eating. Here's a post on intuitive eating with celiac/food allergies and vegetarian/vegan diets and intuitive eating.

5. Intuitive eating is anti-health/nutrition. IMHO, intuitive eating is one of the most powerful tools we have in taking care of our health. Intuitive eating is not anti-health, it simply takes a broader view of health, considering mental health as equally important as physical health. While sometimes making peace with food means putting nutrition on the back burner for a bit, that's simply one step in self-moderating and figuring out how you'd like to engage with gentle nutrition.

Resources to Learn More About Intuitive Eating:

What questions do you have about intuitive eating? Leave your questions in the comments!

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Intuitive Eating 101: Beginners Guide to Intuitive Eating - Registered Dietitian Columbia SC - Rachael Hartley Nutrition

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Curious about intuitive eating and not sure where to start? I've got ya! This post covers intuitive eating basics including the 10 principles of intuitive eating, myths and misconceptions, and how to get started with intuitive eating. It also has links to my most helpful intuitive eating blog posts,

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Our Favorite Body Positive Instagram Accounts

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Our Favorite Body Positive Instagram Accounts

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Alissa Rumsey Nutrition | New York Registered Dietitian Nutritionist | Virtual Intuitive Eating Coaching

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One of the easiest things we can do for ourselves to change our perception of our bodies and be kinder to ourselves is to revamp who you are following on social media. Here's why changing who you follow on social media will help you improve your body image followed by a list of some of our favorite body positive instagram accounts.
An important step in working towards body acceptance is to diversify the accounts you follow on social media. This way, instead of being bombarded with people who all look a certain way and/or make you feel bad about yourself, you are instead exposed to a range of body sizes, shapes, colors, abilities, and genders. Doing this will help reconstruct your perception of beauty and body size, and move away from the unrealistic body image social media has defined as "normal".

In my How to Improve Your Body Image blog post, I suggest two simple steps to shift our perception and improve body image. The first step is a social media cleanout (if you haven't done this yet, I recommend going back and doing so - check out the full blog post with instructions here); the second step is to follow more body positive Instagram accounts.

Below is a list of suggested body positive Instagram accounts. I've done my best to exclude anyone who promotes diets, intentional weight loss or any other extreme behavior but if I've overlooked something please let me know. Or, if there is someone you love who you don't see on this list, please share with me in the comments below and I will include them on the list.

Dietitians/Therapists

Fitness Professionals

Activists & Educators

Influencers

Fashion/Models

For body positivity books, websites and podcasts, check out my resources page.

For more inspiration check out this post.

Who have I missed? Share your favorite body-positive Instagram accounts below!

Are you struggling with your body image?

We work with clients virtually throughout the US, helping people who are frustrated with dieting and struggling with their body image. It is possible to change your relationship with food and your body, and say goodbye to diets once and for all. Learn more about our intuitive eating nutrition coaching programs.

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Our Favorite Body Positive Instagram Accounts | Intuitive Eating Dietitian

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One of the easiest things we can do for ourselves to change our perception of our bodies and be kinder to ourselves is to revamp who you are following on social media. Here's why changing who you follow on social media will help you improve your body image followed by a list of some of our favorite body positive instagram accounts.

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Diet Culture is dangerous and harms people of all sizes, including by perpetuating eating disorders and making a full recovery almost impossible. But when it comes to identifying Diet Culture in a world that is sadly rife with it, there can be plenty of confusion. If we truly want to prevent eating disorders and create a culture where full recovery is possible, we need to learn to identify Diet Culture and speak out against it. While this list certainly isn't exhaustive, it covers some of the main tenets of Diet Culture, as well as some options for fighting back.

Diet Culture conflates size and health, pathologizing some body sizes

Weight stigma is so firmly entrenched in our culture that even healthcare professionals often substitute fatphobia for actual diagnoses, and substitute diets for the evidence-based interventions that a thin person with the same health issues would receive.
Resisting Diet Culture
When you see someone pathologizing fat bodies, you can explain that there are healthy and unhealthy people of every shape and size, and that adding healthism to sizeism is not a good look. Point out that what's important is that people of all sizes have access to ethical, evidence-based care, and that weight loss recommendations aren't prescribed for health issues. As the brilliant Deb Burgard has pointed out, "We prescribe for fat people what we diagnose as disordered in thin people."

This is dangerous for fat people who are prescribed disordered eating behaviors, for people of all sizes who live in a world where disordered eating behaviors are normalized, for not-fat people with eating disorders who are given the message that if they were fat their eating disorder behaviors would be not just be appropriate, but beneficial and doctor approved, and for fat people with eating disorders who are given behavior prescriptions that celebrate their eating disorders and make them even more entrenched. Pair that with body dysmorphia and/or an extreme fear of becoming fat and diet culture quickly becomes deadly. This is why a Size Acceptance/ Health at Every Size® paradigm is the only acceptable paradigm.

Diet Culture encourages following external rules about what, when, and how much to eat

Another aspect of diet culture is the use of food rules and restriction to manipulate body size-either to make sure one doesn't become fat, or to try to make fat people thin. In addition to the fact that only a tiny fraction of people can manipulate body size long-term in this way, these are all red flag behaviors for eating disorders.
Resisting Diet Culture
When you see this suggestion, you can remind people that food has plenty of appropriate uses in our culture, including nourishment, celebration, and emotional eating, but trying to manipulate our body size is not one of them. If someone is looking for help around this, you can recommend a HAES-based dietitian.

Diet Culture suggests that people are more or less good/moral/worthy based on their body size

The government-funded "war on obesity" is based on telling everyone that a fat person will ever meet, along with fat people themselves, that fat people should be stereotyped, shamed, stigmatized, and harassed. The result is that people actually believe that a thin body is more attractive, more worthy, and better than a fat body, and behave accordingly, leading to size-based oppression, including internalized oppression
Resisting Diet Culture
A great comeback to this is to point out that all bodies are good bodies and that, as anti-Diet-Culture warrior Marilyn Wann has famously pointed out, "The only thing anyone can diagnose by looking at a fat person is their own level of prejudice toward fat people."

Diet Culture creates thin privilege, which makes thinness a gatekeeper for jobs/benefits/comfort/accommodation

If you expect that you can enter a restaurant, public transportation, roller coaster, doctor's waiting room, Broadway play, or flight and find a seat that accommodates you, you have thin privilege. And that's just one example. Thin privilege is created by a world that is based upon accommodating thin people, and seeing thin bodies as more deserving than fat bodies.
Resisting Diet Culture
Like all privilege, most thin people didn't ask for it, and can't give it away, but they can use it to fight Diet Culture. An excellent use of thin privilege is to find out what fat people want that thin people already have, and then ask how to help. For example, when someone says, "I can't believe that a fat person thinks that they should get to travel from point A to point B on this plane for the same price as I do," say "Why do we get seats that accommodate us, but other people are asked to pay twice as much for the same trip? That's not fair." Then do things from signing petitions and getting involved in activism, to interrupting fatphobia on planes and welcoming fat people to sit next to you.

Diet Culture suggests movement as punishment for, or prevention of, being fat, rather than for other reasons like fun, or personal goals

If I had a nickel for every person who had a messy breakup with exercise because of a fatphobic gym teacher, I would be rich. Diet Culture throws things like joyful movement out the window in order to talk about movement as a way to manipulate body size. It also encourages people to stereotype fat people involved in movement, leading to fat people doing the workouts we've been doing for years interrupted by people gushing about how proud they are that we have "started a workout program" and how we'll "lose that weight in no time."
Resisting Diet Culture
Let's be clear: nobody is obligated to participate in fitness of any kind, not everyone has the same access to movement options, and participation in movement is not a barometer of worthiness. As someone who has finished two marathons (and holds the Guinness World Record for Heaviest Woman to Complete a Marathon) I can tell you for sure that running a marathon and having a Netflix marathon are morally equivalent activities. When it comes to movement, we should work hard to make sure everyone has access to the information and movement options they may want, and then mind our own business.

Diet Culture views fat people as less valuable and more risk-able

Fat people who have health issues often find their healthcare practitioner recommending that they have their stomachs amputated or bound (also known as "bariatric surgery") or prescribing diet drugs, despite the fact that these can kill people, often have horrific lifelong side effects for those who survive them, and offer no guarantee of effective treatment of actual health issues. Thin people with these same health issues are given evidence-based interventions and are never asked to risk their life and quality of life. Diet Culture creates a belief that it's ok to risk the life of a fat person in order to make them a thin person. Diet Culture wants fat people to be thin or dead, and doesn't seem to care much which.
Resisting Diet Culture
We can interrupt this by insisting that fat people receive the same evidence-based interventions as thin people, and by never suggesting that it's appropriate to risk a fat person's health-physical or mental-in an effort to turn them into a thin person.

Diet Culture is dangerous for people of all sizes, and particularly dangerous to those with a predisposition for, currently suffering with, or recovering from eating disorders. The eating disorders community needs to lead the dismantling of Diet Culture ( including within our own community) and in transforming the world into a place that values all bodies.
Join the NEDA Network in rejecting diet culture by promoting No Diet Day on May 6th. Ragen Chastain is a speaker, writer, activist, Certified Health Coach, and thought leader in the fields of Health at Every Size, Size Acceptance, and Corporate Wellness. Ragen has brought her captivating and motivating mix of humor and hard facts to stages including Google Headquarters, CalTech, and IvyQ. Author of the blog danceswithfat, the book Fat: The Owner's Manual, and editor of the anthology The Politics of Size, Ragen is frequently featured as an expert in print, radio, television, and documentary film. Ragen is a three-time National dance champion, and two-time marathoner who holds the Guinness World Record for Heaviest Person to Complete a Marathon (Female,) and co-founded the Fit Fatties and the Fat Activism Conference. Ragen lives in LA, and is currently training for her first (and only!) IRONMAN Triathlon. Author image by Lindley Ashline @sweetamaranth

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Diet Culture is dangerous and harms people of all sizes, including by perpetuating eating disorders and making a full recovery almost impossible. But when it comes to identifying Diet Culture in a world that is sadly rife with it, there can be plenty of confusion.

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The 17 Best Podcasts for Intuitive Eating

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The 17 Best Podcasts for Intuitive Eating

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Alissa Rumsey Nutrition | New York Registered Dietitian Nutritionist | Virtual Intuitive Eating Coaching

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Podcasts are a great way to dip into the world of intuitive eating, or to dig deeper into specific topics related to intuitive eating. Many of my colleagues who are experts in this area host fabulous podcasts. Here is a list of 17 of the best intuitive eating podcasts (IMO) to help you integrate the principles of intuitive eating and anti-diet approach into your life.
I mentioned in this post some of my favorite books for learning about intuitive eating and helping you put the principles into practice. Let's face it though, we all struggle with packed schedules and sometimes it is tough to find the time to sit down and read a full book. Podcasts are a wonderful alternative! They have become super popular in the last few years as a way to entertain and educate on the go.

The podcasts below all feature experts in the area of intuitive eating exploring topics related to pregnancy, advocacy, gut health, diet culture, wellness culture, weight, etc. For each podcast, I share a short description and recommend a couple of episodes to get you started.

You can also listen to my interviews on Food Psych, Food Heaven, and Intuitive Bites.
Please note: some links below are affiliate links. I only use affiliate links for products I use and trust! Happy listening!
The Best Intuitive Eating Podcasts

Each week Christy Harrison, author of Anti-Diet, interviews a new expert guest about their relationship with food growing up, their own personal journeys towards body acceptance, and what they are doing now to expose the harmful messages of diet culture. Food Psych is listed as one of the top 100 podcasts on iTunes. I recommend starting with episode #127: Intuitive Eating & Health At Every Size FAQs with Ashley Seruya & Christy Harrison, or episode #106: How to Stop Pursuing Weight Loss & Make Peace with Your Body with Ijeoma Oluo, Author of "So You Want To Talk About Race".

Laura Thomas, author of Just Eat It, explores the lies and dangerous trends of the wellness industry with guests ranging from bloggers to entrepreneurs to creatives to doctors. I recommend starting with episode #45: Intuitive Eating: How to Ditch the Diet Rules w/ Laura & Pixie, or episode #41: What it's Really Like to Have an Eating Disorder w/ Laura & Even from Not Plant Based.

Cara Harbstreet, author of the Healthy Eating for Life workbook, seeks to connect individuals who are breaking free from diet culture through the stories of experts and everyday people. I recommend starting with episode #016: Tracy Brown & Fighting Fear of Weight Gain, or episode #003: Haley Goodrich & An Intro to Health At Every Size (HAES).

12. Imperfect Health with Kelly Jones, RD, CSSD, LDN and Kim Hoban, RDN, CDN, CPT

Caroline Dooner, author of The F*ck It Diet, discusses the failures of the diet and wellness industries and all of the ways their messages harm us physically and mentally. I recommend starting with episode #24: Intuitive Eating Mistakes, or episode #4: Summer Innanen.

What Podcasts am I missing? Share your favorites below!

Are you looking for more support with intuitive eating and body image healing?

We work with clients virtually throughout the US, helping people who are frustrated with dieting change their relationship with food and their bodies Learn more about our intuitive eating coaching programs to see how you can find balance and develop long-term lifestyle habits, no guilt or obsession required.

Looking to learn more about intuitive eating on your own? Our Intuitive Eating Crash Course is a self-paced online course that walks you through the foundational principles of intuitive eating.

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The 17 Best Intuitive Eating Podcasts | Non-Diet Dietitian Nutritionist

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Podcasts are a great way to dip into the world of intuitive eating, or to dig deeper into specific topics related to intuitive eating. Many of my colleagues who are experts in this area host fabulous podcasts.

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"Dieting was never about health for me. Dieting was about being thinner, and therefore prettier, and therefore happier."

For many women, dieting has been part of their lives for pretty much as long as they can remember. Whether you have a lot of weight to lose or just want to drop a few pounds, losing weight is a seemingly ever-present goal to strive for.

And we only ever hear about the numbers before and after. But how does the body feel?

To get a real look at how diet culture affects us, we talked to 10 women about their experience with dieting, how the quest to lose weight has affected them, and how they found empowerment instead.

We hope these insights help you take a closer look at how diet culture affects you or someone you love, and that they provide the answers to help you gain a healthier relationship with food, your body, and women at large.

Ultimately, I feel like dieting puts a serious dent in women's self-confidence.

I've been doing the keto diet for a little less than six months, which I've combined with lots of HIIT workouts and running.

I started because I wanted to make weight for a kickboxing competition, but mentally, it's been a back-and-forth battle with my own willpower and self-esteem.

Physically, I've never been categorized as dangerously overweight or obese, but the fluctuations in my diet and fitness can't be good for my metabolism.

I decided to quit because I'm tired of feeling so restricted. I want to be able to eat "normally," especially at social gatherings. I'm also happy with my appearance (at the moment) and decided to retire from competitive kickboxing, so that's that.

I've been calorie counting for a couple of months now, but I don't really work out. This isn't my first rodeo, but I'm giving it a try again even though dieting mostly ends up in frustration and disappointment.

I thought I'd left dieting behind, but I still feel the need to try something to lose weight, so I experiment with different types and amounts of eating.

When diets focus only on weight loss, it only leads to frustration or worse. When we understand the other health benefits and focus on those rather than weight, I think we can incorporate healthier eating habits long term.

I was obsessed with counting carbs and weighing food at first, but I've realized that was a waste of time.

The diet culture - don't get me started. It literally destroys women. The industry's goal is to focus on a problem it claims it can solve but can scapegoat women for not solving if results don't pan out.

So I don't consciously "diet" anymore. I think of it as giving my body what it needs to feel good and be healthy. I'm a diabetic who has insulin production problems and resistance, a type 1.5 rather than a type 1 or type 2. So, I created my own diet based on strict portion control, carb limiting, and sugar limiting.

To supplement my food intake, I used to make myself ride my exercise bike if I wanted to watch TV. I really, really like to watch TV, so it was serious motivation!

I don't ride anymore due to my destroyed spine, but I do shop the local markets (meaning a lot of walking) and cook (meaning a lot of motion) to keep active. I also just bought a mare who's being trained specifically for me so I can resume horseback riding, which is therapeutic.

Eating well made me healthier and made me happier with my body as I age. It also relieved pressure on my back. I have degenerative disc disease and lost 2 inches in height over a four-year period.

I feel like I've always tried a bunch of different things - never one set plan, but "lower calories" plus "try to minimize carbs" is a big one.

That being said, I don't really work out. I'm unhappy with the way my body looks, especially after having a baby, but it's really hard. I feel like I've always been on a diet.

As a teenager, I was more extreme about it, since unfortunately, I tied dieting with self-worth. The sad part is, I did get more attention at my thinnest than at any other point in my life. I often look back to those moments as "the good times," until I remember how restrictive and obsessive I was over how I ate and when I ate.

I think it's important to know what you're eating and fuel your body with the best foods you can, but I think it goes overboard when women start feeling the pressure to look a certain way, especially since all bodies have different frames.

Dieting can become dangerous very easily. It's sad to think that women feel as if their key worth comes from appearance, or that landing a significant other based on appearance, especially when appearance is nothing in comparison to a good personality.

I lost about 30 pounds about 15 years ago and have kept if off for the most part. This change has had a huge positive impact on my life. I feel better about how I look, and I went from being not very active to an avid athlete, which has given me many positive experiences and led to some great friendships.

But over the last 18 months, I put on a few pounds due to stress plus menopause. My clothes don't fit anymore. I'm trying to get back to the same size as my clothes.

I'm terrified of that weight coming back. Like, pathologically fearful about weight gain. There is this huge pressure to be thin, which is justified as being healthier. But being thin isn't always healthier. There's a lot of misunderstanding by regular folks about what's actually healthy.

I did it "old school" and just counted calories and made sure I got in my 10,000 steps a day (thanks to Fitbit). Vanity was part of it, but it was prompted by high cholesterol and wanting to get doctors off my back!

My cholesterol numbers are in the normal range now (although borderline). I have plenty of energy, and I no longer shy away from photos.

I'm happier and healthier, and because I've been at goal weight for 1.5 years, I can have a splurge meal every Saturday night. But I do think it's very unhealthy that we prioritize being "thin" above all else.

Although I've lowered risks for some things, I wouldn't say overall I'm healthier than those who are heavier than I am. I'll have a SlimFast shake for lunch. Is that healthy?

Maybe, but I way admire people who live a truly clean lifestyle more than people who can stay at goal weight by living on Subway sandwiches and pretzels.

I spent years dieting and obsessively working out because I wanted to lose weight and look the way I imagine in my head. However, pressure to follow a restrictive diet and exercise plan has been detrimental to my mental and physical health.

It puts emphasis on numbers and "progress" instead of doing what is best for my body in any given moment. I no longer subscribe to any sort of diet and have begun to learn how to eat intuitively by listening to my body's needs.

I've also been seeing a therapist for my body image issues (and anxiety/depression) for two years. She's the one who introduced me to intuitive eating and Health at Every Size movements. I'm working hard each and every day to undo the damage done to me and so many other women by societal expectations and beauty ideals.

I think women are made to believe they are not good enough if they don't fit into a certain pants size or look a certain way, and ultimately dieting doesn't work in the long run.

There are ways to eat "healthy" without restricting your body or allowing yourself to enjoy food, and diet fads will always continue to come and go. They are rarely sustainable in the long run, and do little but make women feel bad about themselves.

Every other diet I have tried has either resulted in weight gain during the diet or hypoglycemic episodes. I'd decided not to diet because they never work for me and always backfire, but my weight had started to steadily creep up over the last year and I hit the weight I promised myself I wouldn't hit ever again. So, I decided to try one more time.

I started following the military diet coupled with working out a few times a week. It was stressful and frustrating. While the military diet helped me lose a few pounds, they just came right back. It's the exact same results as all the other diets.

Diet culture is so negative. I have co-workers who are constantly dieting. None of them are what I would consider overweight, and most are skinny if anything.

My aunt almost killed herself trying to lose weight before finally agreeing to try weight loss surgery. The whole thing is just overwhelming and sad.

I've been dieting since high school. I wanted to lose weight, and I didn't like the way I looked. I went online and read somewhere that someone of my height (5'7") should weigh around 120 pounds. I weighed somewhere between 180 and 190, I think. I also found information about how many calories I needed to cut to lose the amount of weight that I wanted to online, so I followed that advice.

The impact on both my mental and physical health was extremely detrimental. I definitely lost weight on my diet. I think at my lightest I was a little over 150 pounds. But it was unsustainable.

I was constantly hungry and constantly thinking about food. I weighed myself multiple times a day and would feel really ashamed when I had gained weight, or when I didn't think I'd lost enough. I always had mental health issues, but they were especially bad during that time.

Physically, I was extremely tired and weak. When I inevitably quit, I gained all the weight back, plus some.

Dieting was never about health for me. Dieting was about being thinner, and therefore prettier, and therefore happier.

Back then, I would have happily taken a drug that would have taken years off my life to become thin. (Sometimes I think I still would.) I remember someone telling me they lost weight after taking up smoking, and I considered smoking to try and lose weight.

And then I realized I was completely miserable when I was dieting. Even though I still didn't feel great about how I looked when I was heavier, I realized that I was considerably happier as a fat person than I was as a starving person. And if dieting wasn't going to make me happier, I didn't see the point.

So I quit.

I've been working on self-image problems, but I've had to relearn how to interact with food and with my own body. I realized that I also had support from some friends who helped me realize that I could like myself, even if I wasn't thin.

These thoughts about what your body is supposed to look like become completely ingrained in you and are almost impossible to let go of. It also damages our relationship with food. I feel like I don't know how to eat normally. I don't think I know any women who unconditionally like their bodies.

I never called it "dieting." I followed chronic calorie restriction and intermittent fasting (before that was what it was called), which led me to have an eating disorder. The amount of lean muscle in my body dropped so much I later needed the help of a nutritionist to help rebuild it.

I lost energy, had fainting spells, and was afraid of food. It significantly decreased my mental health.

I knew it came from a complicated place in my mind. I needed to be thin more than anything and never lost a substantial amount of weight because, despite my intense calorie restriction, my metabolism had slowed to a point where weight loss just wasn't happening.

I learned this after seeking help for what I thought could be an eating disorder. Knowing weight loss wasn't working had a big impact. Also, learning that it was negatively impacting my health, understanding concepts like intuitive eating and Health at Every Size (that weight has a lot less to do with health than we think), and learning how much popular nutrition "information" is inaccurate also helped my recovery journey.

Emma Thompson told The Guardian, "Dieting screwed up my metabolism, and it messed with my head. I've fought with that multimillion-pound industry all my life, but I wish I'd had more knowledge before I started swallowing their crap. I regret ever going on one."

We know that nutrition advice is notoriously confusing. Research even shows that most diet strategies may even have the opposite effect and make us gain more weight in the long run.

But this knowledge doesn't seem to stop us from shelling out cash. The diet industry is worth more than $70 billion in 2018.

Perhaps this is because the idea that our bodies are never good enough unless we meet the media's latest beauty standard also affects our minds. Wringing our bodies through the diet machine only leaves us feeling unsatisfied, hungry, and not exactly that much closer to our goal weight. And by addressing only part of ourselves, like your weight or waistline instead of the whole body, leads to unbalanced health.

Healthier, holistic ways to approach weight loss and eating habits include intuitive eating (which rejects diet culture) and the Health at Every Size Approach (which considers how different every body can be).

When it comes to your health, body, and mind, it's truly unique and not one-size-fits-all. Aim for what makes you feel good and fuels good, not what only looks good on a scale.
Jennifer Still is an editor and writer with bylines in Vanity Fair, Glamour, Bon Appetit, Business Insider, and more. She writes about food and culture. Follow her on .

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The Problem with Diet Culture: 10 Women and the Effects on Their Health

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How does diet culture affect the way we eat and feel in our bodies? When it comes to having a relationship with food, diet culture can affect the health of our body and mind. Here's how 10 women were affected by dieting and how they found empowerment in themselves instead.

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Christy Harrison - Intuitive Eating Dietitian, Anti-Diet Author, & Certified Eating Disorders Specialist

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Welcome to Food Psych®, a podcast dedicated to critiquing diet and wellness culture.

In weekly episodes, I answer listener questions and talk with guests about making peace with food, healing from disordered eating, (re)learning intuitive eating, challenging harmful beliefs about wellness, and more-all from a body-positive, anti-diet perspective. Along the way, I share my own journey from disordered eater and dieter to food writer and anti-diet dietitian.

This podcast challenges diet culture in all its forms-including the restrictive behaviors that often masquerade as wellness and fitness.

Launched in 2013, Food Psych is now regularly in Apple's top 100 Health podcasts, with tens of thousands of listeners worldwide. Explore the most recent episodes below, and be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts (or your favorite podcast app) so you never miss an episode!

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Food Psych Podcast - Christy Harrison - Intuitive Eating Dietitian, Anti-Diet Author, & Certified Eating Disorders Specialist

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In weekly episodes, I answer listener questions and talk with guests about making peace with food, healing from disordered eating, (re)learning intuitive eating, challenging harmful beliefs about wellness, and more-all from a body-positive, anti-diet perspective. Along the way, I share my own journey from disordered eater and dieter to food writer and anti-diet dietitian.

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Alissa Rumsey Nutrition | New York Registered Dietitian Nutritionist | Virtual Intuitive Eating Coaching

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If you've been around here a while you've probably seen the term 'diet culture' thrown around, but it's not always explained in detail. So, today I wanted to clear up any confusion and fill in the blanks by talking about what 'diet culture' actually is and what it means for you and the intuitive eating, non-diet movement.
For many of us - even most of us - dieting, the goal of losing a few pounds or attaining 'body goals' has been a regular part of life. Maybe there are times when it's more frequent - like as we approach summer, or around the holidays and big life celebrations - but it's something that most of us can all relate to or have been involved in. It's also something that's totally accepted as normal because we live in a dieting culture.

Something that's interesting about the culture we have around dieting, is the acceptance that it's never something we cross off our list - somehow there's always more to do. As soon as you start one diet, you'll hear about a new and improved version for you to try next, another program to enroll in or membership to join. Each diet or 'lifestyle' promises extreme, flashy and headline-worthy results if you can adopt behaviors that are just as extreme, flashy and headline-worthy.

This is how so many get stuck in the dieting cycle and develop disordered relationships with food. We're taught how to diet, but not often taught how to eat for enjoyment, satisfaction and nourishment. If diet culture was an animal, it would be a unicorn telling every single one of us that if we *just* bought enough skincare products, ate the right foods and exercised for a precise amount of time wearing the correct outfit - we could all be unicorns too.

(Long story short, diet culture lies.)

Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, CDN is an outspoken leader in the non-diet, weight-inclusive movement is and her definition of 'diet culture' has been widely quoted and referenced. She says:

"Diet culture is a system of beliefs that:

Worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue, which means you can spend your whole life thinking you're irreparably broken just because you don't look like the impossibly thin "ideal."

Promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher status, which means you feel compelled to spend a massive amount of time, energy, and money trying to shrink your body, even though the research is very clear that almost no one can sustain intentional weight loss for more than a few years.

Demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others, which means you're forced to be hyper-vigilant about your eating, ashamed of making certain food choices, and distracted from your pleasure, your purpose, and your power.

Oppresses people who don't match up with its supposed picture of "health," which disproportionately harms women, femmes, trans folks, people in larger bodies, people of color, and people with disabilities, damaging both their mental and physical health."

Examples of Diet Culture:

When you start to notice and recognize the vast reach of diet culture, you'll begin to notice everyday statements and conversations that are fueled by it:

"If I was thinner, then I'd want to go to the gym regularly"

"I used to dance but I'm too ____ to now, maybe if I was ____"

"Oh man, if I ate like that every day I'd be ____"

"They'd like me more if my body was ___"

"Well, in high school I weighed X but haven't been able to get back to that since."

These statements may not seem shocking, and that's partly because we hear many of them every day, but they are all grounded in the idea that a smaller body is a healthier, more desirable, more deserving of being an active and happy body, than another.

Diet culture is the reason that moving away from dieting and choosing to respect and work with your body - instead of constantly trying to change it - is so radical. We've all been subjected to diet culture messages and have been conditioned to believe that not only does thinness and dieting equate to health, but that the pursuit of health makes one person morally superior to another.

Diet culture is also what keeps us on that dieting cycle by feeding us the narratives that you're 'just one more diet' away from beauty, success, happiness, etc. It's what convinces us to spend our time, money and energy chasing standards of health and beauty that are created by the dieting and beauty industries. Diet culture is what teaches us that our self-worth and abilities are tied to our physical appearance and what positions 'diets' as the answer to all our insecurities, struggles and problems. But if you look at your past experience with dieting, you can likely see that's not true.

Diet culture consistently over-promises and under-delivers.

A few places you might spot diet culture messages:

A gym program that sells you a certain look or weight after 8 weeks of their classes.
One of my favorite quotes by Why? Beth Pilcher, LMSW sums it up perfectly, "Even if we all ate and exercised exactly the same, our bodies would still look different". Which is why we cannot guarantee any specific results like a change in X lbs or inches. If the program promotes fun, engaging and challenging movements - that's something that is more inclusive, realistic and health-promoting for everyone.

Spa treatments that claim to shrink your body.
Why? Diet culture is not only about food, the beauty industry is also on board with treatments and products that promise to transform us in just "30 minutes or less." These treatments are often expensive, inaccessible to most of the population and promote an aesthetic or look, instead of any actual marker of health.

Foods advertised as "guilt-free" or "clean."
Why? These labels assign a moral value to foods and create doubt about foods that don't have these labels, leading to more stress and confusion around food choices in general. Guilt is never an ingredient so all foods are 'guilt-free' and the term 'clean' doesn't mean anything either. As long as you're washing your hands and your produce, it's clean!

In tag-lines that imply your weight = your worth or happiness.
Why? Just because someone is healthy doesn't mean they're happy, and just because someone is happy doesn't mean they're healthy. And neither of those things are dependent on your weight! Assigning a weight requirement to health and happiness perpetuates the idea that there is a certain look to health, there isn't.

In products or supplements that imply health requires exorbitant cost, time, energy and privilege.
Why? This is an example of health-ism, the idea that your worth as a person is determined by your health and your pursuit of health.

Health-ism is defined by Lucy Aphramor, PhD, RD on her blog:
"Health-ism is a belief system that sees health as the property and responsibility of an individual and ranks the personal pursuit of health above everything else, like world peace or being kind.
It ignores the impact of poverty, oppression, war, violence, luck, historical atrocities, abuse and the environment from traffic, pollution to clean water and nuclear contamination and so on. It protects the status quo, leads to victim blaming and privilege, increases health inequities and fosters internalized oppression.
Health-ism judges people's human worth according to their health."

How to Identify and Move Away From Diet Culture:

follow anyone who makes you feel like you're not doing enough or who shares diet culture messages. Then follow more non-diet, body positive accounts including accounts that showcase a diverse range of colors, sizes, genders and abilities. Clean up your social media feeds. UnHere are some of my favorite accounts to follow.

Reject diet culture - change the language you use around food, bodies and health. Use the check-in "Would I say this to a friend?" before you say or think something to yourself. The voice we hear the most is our own, so we want to speak kindly.

Speak out against diet culture, or support those who do. Jameela Jamil is an outspoken celebrity who has used her influence to call out celebrities and companies promoting unrealistic and harmful beauty standards on her platform, @i_weigh

Find a community and support system. Unlearning diet culture and relearning how to nourish and treat your body from a place of respect is hard work! Luckily, you don't have to do it alone. After you've cleaned up your social media feeds and are starting to recognize diet culture in everyday life, you'll want to build up a community that can support you along the way. The Ditch the Diet - Intuitive Eating and Body Image Support Group is a great place to learn, connect and stay inspired with hundreds of other supportive members.

Taking the 'Diet' Out of Dietitian (The Non-Diet Movement)

The reason Alissa and I , as well as so many other registered dietitians and providers, call ourselves 'non-diet' dietitians is because there is an assumption that dietitians put you on a diet. It is in the name, after all. The label of a 'non-diet' helps clients and the public easily identify that they can trust us, and our non-diet colleagues, to help them navigate the diet culture we live in while also providing patient-centered care, no diets necessary!

Ready to take the next step in rejecting diet culture? Schedule a discovery call and learn more about our virtual nutrition coaching programs so you can find balance and develop healthy habits, that work for you and your lifestyle.

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What is 'Diet Culture'? | Alissa Rumsey Nutrition | Intuitive Eating Coaching

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If you've been around here a while you've probably seen the term 'diet culture' thrown around, but it's not always explained in detail. So, today I wanted to clear up any confusion and fill in the blanks by talking about what 'diet culture' actually is and what it means for you and the intuitive eating, non-diet movement.

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Episode 32: on Intuitive Eating - The Consistency Project

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5 Ways to Reject Diet Culture & Love Your Body

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5 Ways to Reject Diet Culture & Love Your Body

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5 Ways to Reject Diet Culture & Love Your Body