Why do we feel guilty about eating food? Food is supposed to nourish our bodies, yet we find ourselves experiencing feelings of guilt after eating certain foods. It used to just be things like chocolate that people felt guilty about eating, but now people are feeling guilty about eating bread, drinking a glass of milk, and even eating certain vegetables.
Eating is supposed to be a pleasurable and happy experience, but when we feel guilty it makes the experience unpleasant. Frequently unpleasant eating experiences will eventually erode your confidence and trust in your body, as well as your relationship with food.
So, what is causing feelings of guilt around food, and how can we stop it. Guilt is a psychological effect of deprivation. If anything in life is restricted, it sets up whatever was restricted, to be extra special. For example, if you put a child on the floor with a variety of toys but tell him that he can play with any of the toys except the empty box, he will probably only want to play with the empty box. Depriving yourself of an item can heighten the desire for the item.
If you are depriving yourself of foods that you enjoy, you will probably end up craving those foods more. The deprivation backlash is rebound eating. If you feel like you are a chocoholic and your only solution to managing the problem was not to allow yourself to eat chocolate, you would more than likely experience a backlash where you can’t resist eating the whole box. The “what the hell” effect is commonly experienced here, where a dieting rule is broken, and you can no longer restrain you’re eating, and you eat the whole slab instead of one or two pieces. This is usually accompanied by feelings of guilt, swearing not to eat chocolate again, and compensating by under-eating.
The longer foods are prohibited, the more seductive they become. Eating these foods is accompanied by a sense of guilt. As the guilt increases, so does the quantity of food intake. The more deprived you become from specific foods, the greater the deprivation backlash.
Deprivation and guilt work like a seesaw; when one goes up, the other must come down.
As you restrict foods that you enjoy, deprivation gets higher and higher. Meanwhile, feelings of guilt go down because you haven’t eaten any ‘bad’ foods. Eventually, deprivation gets to its highest level, and at the same time, guilt is at its lowest, and you feel like you have been ‘good.’ You start to feel open to allowing some forbidden foods because your guilt is so low.
As you begin to eat the forbidden food, you begin to feel guilt. That guilt triggers feelings of being ‘bad,’ which leads you to the ‘what the hell effect’ and you eat more foods. Guilt continues to rise as deprivation declines until your guilt is at its maximum, and you decide to start restricting food and depriving yourself again and continue the seesaw.
The only way to get off the seesaw is to let go of deprivation. When you give yourself permission not to be deprived, you simultaneously let go of guilt.
The key to guilt-free eating isn’t finding the lower energy, sugar-free, everything free ‘healthier’ alternative. That behavior just increases deprivation. To eat without guilt means to give yourself unconditional permission to eat.
This means throwing away the idea that there are good and bad foods. If there is something that you want to eat, unconditional permission to eat means eating what you really want. It’s eating without obligatory penance (I can eat this chocolate now, but I will start my diet again tomorrow). By freeing your food choices from any hidden agenda to restrict them in the future, you no longer have the urgency to overeat. You can then make peace with food where something like chocolate becomes emotionally equal to fruit.
Getting over Fear
Permitting yourself to eat often comes with fear. Fear of no longer restricting foods is usually expressed in the following ways:
‘I won’t be able to stop eating’;
‘I tried it before, but I still overate’; and,
‘If I allow myself to eat whatever I want, I won’t eat healthfully.’
I won’t be able to stop eating
Remember that when you know that previously forbidden foods will always be allowed, there is no longer the urgency to eat large quantities of them. People also tire of foods that they are frequently exposed to as the food loses its novelty.
I tried it before, but I still overate
If you feel like you have “allowed” yourself to eat forbidden foods, but you still overate, were those foods really unconditionally allowed? Or were you temporarily breaking the rules and still have that inner voice telling you that you shouldn’t eat that. You would have still had feelings of guilt and wanting to limit these foods in the future.
If I allow myself to eat whatever I want, I won’t eat healthfully
When all foods are on a level playing field, you will find that you will balance your intake with mostly nutritious food and occasional play foods. After only having chocolate for dinner, you would start to crave something the complete opposite, such as some grilled chicken and a refreshing salad.
A big obstacle to making peace with food is a lack of self-trust. Restriction and continuous negative eating experiences will erode your self-trust. By creating more positive experiences with food, you will start to build that trust up and improve your relationship with food. Overall, our body is built to be able to adapt to survive, so we should trust that it knows what it’s doing.
Reference:
Tribole & Resch. (2017). Intuitive Eating. Chapter 8