Do you find that you’re prone to all-or-nothing thinking? Something’s either black or white, good or bad, wrong or right? I think we’re all prone to this sort of binary thinking, to varying degrees, and most cases that’s not a good thing. Why? Because you find it hard to embrace the gray areas, find the middle path, or be OK with “good enough,” it can get in the way of your health and happiness. And that includes when we’re all-or-nothing about nutrition.
Diet culture is built on binary thinking. A food is healthy or not healthy, compliant or not compliant…good or bad. But funny how no one seems to agree on the rules. Whether you’re using magazine articles, books, social media influencers or celebrity doctors as your references, one food or type of food — let’s use fruit as an example — might be exalted one place and demonized in another.
Even headlines reporting on legitimate scientific research can contribute to nutrition whiplash, touting the benefits of a plant-based (so higher carb) diet one day, then the keto (very low carb) diet the next. Let’s look at why this happens
Nutrition is not one-size-fits-all
When we consider nutrition research there’s a reason for seemingly opposite results: there are many ways of eating that can benefit our health. I will offer a few caveats:
- Randomized controlled diet studies (the gold standard) are studied for the short term (anywhere from a few weeks to months) because they’re expensive to run. These studies might be able to tell you if a certain diet lowers blood pressure, blood sugar or some other “intermediate” marker of health, but they can’t tell you if people following that diet will be less likely to develop heart disease or diabetes down the road.
- Long-term studies looking at people who follow a certain eating pattern and how likely they are to develop chronic diseases are observational (epidemiological), so researchers can’t prove cause-and-effect because they can’t control for other variables that affect health and may weaken the strength of their observations.
- Most randomized controlled diet studies don’t compare one presumably healthful diet against another (for example, vegan vs. keto). Participants are generally randomized to either follow the study diet or to continue to eat their usual diet.
- Even if a diet/eating plan does show promise for improving health, if it’s too expensive or otherwise not sustainable for the long term, then does its healthfulness really matter?
This is why I want to say “Nooooooooo…” when someone tells me they’re trying to “optimize their nutrition.” Unfortunately, it’s a common sentiment, especially among people trying to chronic disease proof themselves, increase their longevity, or maximize their energy/productivity. The biohacking trend supported by (although not started by) Silicone Valley tech bros is one standout example. Sigh.
Yeah, no, you can’t disease proof yourself
If you were to “optimize” your nutrition, you would have to run an extensive, expensive, experiment with a participant pool of one — you. That’s because we don’t all respond the same to identical inputs. We aren’t robots.
But even if you had the interest, time, money and energy to do that, there’s no guarantee that, even if you found your ideal inputs, they would result in the outcomes you’re hoping for. In other words, you might not get a fair return on your investment. You might still have low-energy days. You might still develop a chronic disease. You might still die sooner than you hoped for.
When you believe in the benefits of nutrition, it’s easy to also believe that you can disease-proof yourself if you are sufficiently dedicated to eating your broccoli. Now, there are many good reasons to eat broccoli. It’s delicious, especially roasted, and it’s full of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytonutrients. However, eating broccoli every day isn’t going to turn you into a disease-free centenarian, even if you pair it with a big enough piece of wild salmon to comply with the current obsession with protein.
The idea that we can use diet and lifestyle to dodge all illness is appealing. The reality is that while eating well and maintaining other health-promoting habits reduces your risk of disease and untimely death, it can’t wipe away all risk. Genetics and social factors — income, living environment, relationships, stigma and oppression — also affect health.
Does this mean that nutrition doesn’t matter. No, of course not. But by striving for optimal nutrition — by filtering nutrition through an all-or-nothing lens — you’re creating one problem while trying to solve another. You’re stressing yourself out, feeding anxiety, and developing disordered eating.
Eating competence for the win
I mentioned Intuitive Eating, but I also draw on the idea of eating competence, which was developed by registered dietitian Ellyn Satter, RD, MS, LCSW, and is outlined in her book “Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family: How to Eat, How to Raise Good Eaters, How to Cook” and on the Ellyn Satter Institute website.
When I interviewed Satter for an article several years ago, she said the biggest misconception people have about eating competence is “That it’s about eating the right food and avoiding the wrong food,” she said. “They get into the ‘good food, bad food’ right away.”
The Eating Competence Model includes a hierarchy of food needs. The base, or foundation, of the needs pyramid is getting enough to eat. This is challenging both for people who live with food insecurity along with those who are chronically dieting to lose weight. I also find that many people aren’t eating enough because they aren’t sure what they “should” be eating. They don’t know what foods are “OK” or “healthy enough” so sometimes they don’t eat at all.
(I also see many people — new clients or otherwise — who aren’t eating enough early in the day. Sometimes this is simply because they don’t prioritize their need for regular meals and snacks, sometimes it’s because they have food decision paralysis. They end up “overeating” at night as the body tries to meet its intense need to eat something, anything, and quickly.)
Once you are reliably feeding yourself enough food, the next step is to allow yourself enough enjoyable food. “You have to be able to provide yourself with that foundation,” Satter told me. “After they do that, people typically get kind of picky. Eventually they get to the point where they take interest in unfamiliar foods,” she said, which helps build a more varied and nutritious diet.
Accordingly, research shows that competent eaters have higher-quality diets, in part because not forcing yourself to eat fruits and vegetables will allow them to become foods you eat for pleasure. “People eat nutritious food because they enjoy it, not because they have to. The bedrock of eating competence is that you enjoy eating and feel good about it.”
The wisdom of gentle nutrition
The Intuitive Eating principle of “Honor Your Health With Gentle Nutrition” has some similarities with eating competence. Gentle nutrition is the tenth and final Intuitive Eating principle, and the primary reason for that is that most people know almost too much about nutrition and already have a lot of food rules.
Working through the other principles first lets you approach nutrition with a new, open perspective. When people become skilled intuitive eaters, and they’ve:
…then that opens the door to “gentle nutrition.” Gentle nutrition honors your health and your taste buds while making you feel well. It’s an approach to nutrition that is nurturing, not punishing.
It also gives you the space, when you are intrigued by a new nutrition trend, to weigh it against what you know of your own self, your life stage, and your prior experiences. This includes your activity levels, health status, likes and dislikes and the time/energy/skill you have to dedicate to cooking.
If you think you might enjoy or benefit from this trend or new bit of nutrition information, you can decide whether to give it a test drive, or not. And if you do decide to try it, you can see if it fits you, like a pair of shoes. If not, you can release it and go back to what you’ve already learned fits you better.
Disclaimer: All information provided here is of a general nature and is furnished only for educational purposes. This information is not to be taken as medical or other health advice pertaining to an individual’s specific health or medical condition. You agree that the use of this information is at your own risk.
Until next time,
