Caption: Challenging and dissecting the conceptualizations that stand in the way of our nourishment and livelihood.
Food does not have morality: it cannot be good or bad, clean or dirty, forbidden or allowed. Foods being organized into “good or bad” categories is a concept that the diet industry has pushed for over a century.
From my experience, food does not have the virtue of decision-making, it cannot exercise ethics and it does not have the capacity to be ludicrous. Carrots and french fries have the same ability to be wrong or malicious – none.
It can be an uphill battle to gain and maintain a healthy relationship with food. Many factors are battling against us as individuals who need food and calories to survive, but naturally seek comfort and enjoyment in the foods we eat and more generally, in almost everything we do.
The concept of “Good vs. Bad” foods only perpetuates harmful eating habits, which further ingrains hostile ideologies into our lifestyles and society. It is unfair to yourself to outlaw foods from your diet based on an outdated concept pushed by harmful platforms. You are missing out on so much by restricting your-self and living in fear of food.
According to the National Institution of Health, “Eating disorders are actually serious and often fatal illnesses that are associated with severe disturbances in people’s eating behaviors and related thoughts and emotions.”
Eating disorders are a crippling experience, regardless of the form they take. They are complex, serious and dark. It is detrimental to your livelihood. You deserve to live a life not bound to food categories, calories, or body image.
Even though limiting yourself around food dampens diet variability, in turn affecting your health and general quality of life, it is only a puzzle piece in the larger picture of being “healthy”. Health is different to various people, but I define it as all aspects of well-being: mental, physical, social, and any other you can think of are all respected and nurtured as a whole. Health is not just the absence of disease or crisis.
It is essential to entertain health in your everyday life and routine, even though this may look different from person to person. To some, it could be honoring a nutrition goal or maybe eating a food your body has recently been craving. It is up to you to determine what a healthy relationship between food and nutrition is. We need to consume foods that fuel and honor our well-being, and the conceptualization of good and bad foods stands in the way of nourishment.
There are many important factors to having a healthy relationship with food. Satisfaction and flexibility are also valuable and deserve a place at the table.
To answer the initial question, “Do good and bad food exist?” — my answer is no. Far too many factors go into health and well-being to let yourself waste a second longer dwelling on outlawing food and jumping from fad to fad. Relations with food are layered and complex; limiting yourself is never worth the pain.
For getting help, please call or text (800) 931-2237 For additional resources, search: https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org
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