Principle 8: Respect Your Body

Just because someone has a size 6 shoe, it doesn’t mean they’re healthier than someone with a size 8 shoe. The same goes for the shape and size of our bodies! The truth is, health is possible at EVERY size. Diet culture teaches us to value thinness over health, and we therefore become more critical … Read more

Principle 7: Be Kind with Your Emotions

Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness (without using food) Regardless of our size or shape, food usually has emotional associations (1). The comfort of a cookie after a scraped knee, ice cream to celebrate your team’s win, Sunday night dinner at Grandma’s house. Food is comfort, love, reward and connection – but the problem starts when … Read more

Principle 6: Feel Your Fullness

Fullness is a process controlled by hormones and your brain When you are hungry, your brain signals the release of hormones that trigger the desire for food.  When you are full, the brain releases hormones that tell you that you can stop eating (1).  It takes practice to identify signals from your body that send … Read more

Principle 5: Discover the Satisfaction Factor

Eating should bring pleasure and satisfaction!  Diet culture shifts the focus away from positive feelings and instead teaches us to fixate on guilt when we choose foods that don’t fit the “good”, “healthy” or “clean” labels.  Enjoying the eating experience means choosing the foods that you are craving in that moment … and by doing … Read more

Principle 4: Challenge the Food Police

What (or who?) is Food Police?  Food police refers to the beliefs or concepts – driven by diet culture – that say we need to place a value on the foods we eat (1). They label foods as “good”, “bad”, “clean”, etc. The food police can come in many forms including media, friends and family – … Read more

Principle 3: Make Peace with Food

Making peace with food  The goal of this principle is to give yourself unconditional permission to eat all foods, whenever you’re hungry, and without feeling like you have to make adjustments or sacrifices if you “screw up” (1).  Take a minute right now, and think about foods that diet culture has taught you are “good”, … Read more

Principle 2: Honour Your Hunger

Keep your body well fed  What does this even mean? We need enough calories and carbohydrates to function and thrive, but counting calories is not the answer. From the time we are born, we are hard-wired to eat when we are hungry and stop when we are full. These cues are controlled by our brain and … Read more

Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality

What is diet culture?  Diet culture is the system of beliefs that idealizes eating a certain way in order to obtain a particular body shape.  It associates thinness with higher social status and moral value.  At the same time, it demonizes certain ways of eating, and attaches shame to “unhealthy” food choices and certain body … Read more

The Eating Experience

Finding Satisfaction and Coping with Emotions At times it can be easy to forget that eating involves more than just addressing our physiological needs, it also includes the experience itself and the pleasure we can gain from it. By having a better understanding of taste and emotional hunger, the satisfaction factor, and how food is … Read more