By: Kelsey Pukala, registered dietitian/nutritionist at Nourishing Minds Nutrition

What is the harm in caring for our health? Or caring about what we put in our bodies? Why does it matter if we obsess a bit over what we eat or cook or buy at the grocery store? Is it really that bad to worry about what we eat?

These are all excellent questions and completely valid! It may seem that these thoughts are perfectly fine and normal to have. Honestly, we think that’s because our culture is literally obsessed with “health,” however, the definition of what “health” actually means differs from person to person. Frankly, we think it’s a fantastic privilege to care about what we put in our bodies and to choose what we eat and don’t eat. It’s amazing to have as many options as are available today.

The problem isn’t having a food preference or caring about health... these are empowering things! The problem is when simply “caring about health” turns into obsession, anxiety, rigidity and worry around food. This is when we start to spiral out of control and lose sight of what all encompasses our health as humans.

When we boil our health down to only food or exercise, we are ignoring hundreds of other things that have been studied to affect our overall health and wellbeing. The World Health Organization actually has a statement about several things that we know affect health:

“Many factors combine together to affect the health of individuals and communities. Whether people are healthy or not, is determined by their circumstances and environment. To a large extent, factors such as where we live, the state of our environment, genetics, our income and education level, and our relationships with friends and family all have considerable impacts on health, whereas the more commonly considered factors such as access and use of health care services often have less of an impact.”

We often forget that our genetics, environment and stress factors play a HUGE role in our health! What is interesting is that some of these things are largely out of our control, which potentially is why we go to food and exercise to try and manipulate our health status as that can be something that is more easily controlled.

You may still be wondering why obsessing over your diet is truly a bad thing. And we would then ask these questions:

-How is your mental, emotional and psychological health?

-Do you have anxiety around food?

-Do you menstruate regularly?

-Are you cold often?

-Do you feel anxious when you eat something that you didn’t personally prepare?

-Are you able to practice flexibility around food if plans change?

-How are you sleeping?

-Do you eat foods that actually sound good to you?

-Do you experience pleasure with food?

These are just a few things to think about! When we boil food down to JUST micronutrients and macronutrients, we miss out on so many other benefits of food! Things like connection, pleasure, community, tradition, enjoyment, nostalgia, fun etc. And we would argue that all of these things dramatically affect our health!! Maybe even more so than the food we actually eat. Gasp!

Please don’t hear what we’re not saying… Here at Nourishing Minds Nutrition, we LOVE health and we LOVE helping clients heal from disordered and obsessive eating patterns to truly find healing. When we focus solely on nutrition and exercise, we are missing out on so many other factors that potentially affect our health.

Health and pursuing health look different for everyone. It’s not one-size-fits-all. As soon as you hear that there is “one way” to health, we would encourage you to get curious and maybe even skeptical about that.

So, where is there space for you to practice flexibility around food? Where can you choose pleasure over rules in your diet? If you’re struggling with this, we would encourage you to work with a professional well-versed in Intuitive Eating. It’s not easy to move away from obsession around food and it won’t always feel easy to be flexible with food. But, please know that there is so much more to health than worrying and obsessing over the foods we choose. It takes time, practice and patience to work towards freedom, and we are here to support you on your journey.