Eating Behaviour - DVD segment 6

by Meagan Bone

In this segment we begin to take a look at our eating habits and what influences them.

When the women in our survey and on the video were asked to define healthy eating, here’s what some of them had to say:

“Healthy eating behaviours is knowing when your body needs to replenish and allowing yourself to do so. By the term healthy I assume I myself would eat a piece of meat for dinner with a helping of vegetables for example; three square meals a day with light snacking between classes.”¹⁰⁸

“Not extreme - neither too much nor too little; lots of fruits and veggies; balanced meals; able to moderately indulge in your fave treats once in a while; enjoying good food with or without company.”¹⁸¹

“Unhealthy eating behaviours to me would be to either overeat to an extreme or to undereat or starve yourself to anorexia or death. Overeating is unhealthy, especially high fattening foods because it could lead to obesity. Starving yourself; binging and dieting; can lead to other problems, which is extremely unhealthy as well. Unhealthy eating behaviours can also be viewed to me as something someone does to diet. Not starve themselves, but simply even just skip meals on a regular basis.”¹¹²

" Healthy eating for me is making sure, for myself, that I have a regimen and trying to eat three meals a day and some snacks.”^{Kat on video}

“I believe unhealthy eating is either overeating unhealthy food too often, more than 3 times a week, like fast food, chips, candy etc. These foods can be eaten but within moderation. For example, I don't believe one should eat chocolate bars everyday. I also believe over-dieting or starving yourself is unhealthy. If you eat healthier foods and exercise moderately, there should be no need for dieting.”¹⁰⁴

“For healthy eating, one must consume a variety of food over a day to get the different nutrients and minerals that are needed for the body. Healthy eating means limiting the diet to the proper types of fats and oils, and eating only what you need to feel satiated. Along with eating the proper types of food, you need to make sure that you don't skip any meals, or at least not on purpose or often because it can hurt the body. Basically, I think healthy eating is home cooked meals with meat, vegetables and grains and making sure you get lots of milk and water to drink. You should avoid eating too much fast food and only eat amounts that your body can manage.”¹⁸⁹

Eating: Your Needs, Your Feelings, and Your Rules

When it comes to eating, certain nutrients such as vitamins and minerals are important for everyone. Karrin the Dietitian will go into all of that in great detail in the segment comin up. For now, a great way to think of eating is fuelling your body. Just as you wouldn’t expect a car to run without gas, our bodies cannot function and perform effectively without the proper nutrients. However, everyone’s eating patterns are different. Our individual needs vary as a function of physical activity, our moods, the season, our food preferences, and our schedules. Individuals may also differ in the amount of food they need to feel satisfied and how frequently they need to eat.

Exercise 6.1: Think about your own relationship to food. Ask yourself:

· What foods do you like to eat?

· How do you choose which foods to eat?

· How do you decide when it’s time for you to eat?

· How do you know when you’re full?

Karen mentions in the video that some women fall into the habit of labelling certain foods as “good” or “healthy”, and others as “bad” or “unhealthy”. While it is true that some foods are more nutritious than others are, food is just food and not necessarily “good” or “bad”. For Karen, labelling foods leads her to impose strong restrictions on what she could and could not eat. Karen and Tina both describe how lifting their eating rules was an emotional experience. Karen describes a sense of freedom, while Tina describes feeling as if a weight was lifted when she allowed herself to listen to her body and to eat freely.

Extreme Eating Habits

As we learned during our discussion of body image, concerns about appearance are very common, especially among women. Concerns about what and how much we eat are frequently related to these concerns about our looks. But consider this: Just because many people have these concerns can we, and should we, say that it’s “normal”? We previously discussed that how we think about food can lead to placing restrictions on our eating behaviour. But what happens when these restrictions become “extreme” or “disordered” to be unhealthy? Let’s look at some characteristic symptoms and consequences of the eating disorders Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa.

Anorexia Nervosa symptoms include refusal to maintain weight at a normal level, intense fear of gaining weight, distorted body image. Consequences can include depression, loss of periods (amenorrhea), changes in heart function, muscle loss and weakness, dry hair and skin, growth of lanugo hair (fine hair covering face and body).

Bulimia Nervosa symptoms include recurrent binge eating (eating larger amounts of food than most would eat in a 2 hour period and feeling that you cannot stop eating); extreme weight control behaviours (vomiting, laxative misuse, fasting, excessive exercise) in an attempt to prevent weight gain; body shape and weight excessively influence one’ self-evaluation. Depression frequently occurs with this eating disorder, and several physical consequences of extreme weight control behaviours are dangerous to one’s health.

Check out www.NEDIC.ca for a thorough review of the symptoms and consequences of these disorders. One important thing to remember is that you do not need to have a formal eating disorder to experience disordered eating. Many people do not meet the all of the diagnostic symptoms for Bulimia or Anorexia Nervosa, but still have unhealthy behaviours and attitudes about food, eating, and their bodies. Where do you stand?

Healthy Choices and Balanced Eating

As Karen says in the video, changing your eating behaviours is not always easy. Speaking from the past experience of having Anorexia, she explains that adopting healthy eating habits requires that we pay attention to what we are eating, and how we feel about our choices. However, as Kat points out, healthy habits become easier to follow and more automatic over time. Choices require less effort as we teach our bodies what it needs.

We have already discussed food as fuel for the body, but what about food as enjoyment? We all have different food preferences and cravings. Nikki explains that while she tries to make healthy choices, she does indulge in her favourite treats from time to time, but it’s all in moderation. One good way to look at balanced eating is to make health conscious choices when it comes to meals, but do give yourself the permission and the freedom to enjoy your favourite foods as snacks.

In the next segment, we'll get the straight goods from the pros about health eating when we visit with Karrin the Dietitian.