Wow! You're Eating Again? How to Fire the Food Police.

Do you ever feel like you’re being patrolled by the Food Police, whether it’s a family member, partner, friend, co-worker or even a stranger?

Food policing sounds something like:

  • Should you really be eating that?

  • Wow! You're eating again?

  • Are you sure you need another serving?

  • You sure can put it away!

  • I can't believe you're eating that!

  • Don’t you know how bad that is for you?

  • Dang! You must really be hungry! 

  • Once on your lips, forever on your hips

  • ​​​​​​​Are you really going to eat all that?

  • Looks like you'll need to hit the gym tomorrow.

  • Someone's being naughty!

If you’ve ever been the victim of food policing, you know it’s never helpful. More often than not, it leaves you feeling humiliated, guilty, ashamed, angry, resentful or rebellious—or all of the above!

Regardless of the food cop’s intentions, you have the right to eat whatever you want—whenever, wherever and however you want it—without having your choices criticized, judged, ridiculed or questioned.

Fire the Food Police 
When the Food Police show up, you may feel compelled to say something to them, perhaps set a boundary or reinforce one.

Of course, how you respond will understandably depend on the situation. 

Many factors may dictate what you do or don’t say, such as the person commenting, how safe or comfortable you feel, how important it is to you, your mood, your energy level, or the environment you’re in.

If you do choose to respond, either in the moment or via a private conversation, text or email later, here are some replies to consider:

  • I know you mean well, but your comments aren’t helpful.

  • What I eat is none of your business.

  • I trust my body to tell me what it needs.

  • I trust myself to give my body what it needs.

  • Please don’t say negative things about my eating.

  • Yes, I’m going to eat it, and I won’t stand for being shamed for it.

  • Who hired you to police my eating? Please don't do it again.

  • You mind your own plate and I'll mind mine.

  • Your negative comments aren’t welcome here, now or ever.

  • You’re out of line. It’s absolutely not okay to criticize my food choices.

  • If you keep slamming my food choices, I won't eat with you anymore.

  • Say nothing, look at them strangely, then walk away to enjoy your food in peace.

Despite what our diet culture, including the Food Police, wants you to believe, you can be trusted to make your own food decisions. And, you never need to justify, defend, explain or apologize for your choices. 

I Was a Dieter in Disguise. How About You?

After years of jumping from one diet to the next, Valerie hit rock bottom. 

Fed up with the weight-loss roller coaster and obsessing over every morsel she ate, she swore off dieting forever. 

Yet, months after quitting, she still shuns carbs, avoids snacking and seconds, never eats after 6:30 p.m., and runs an extra mile whenever she has dessert.

Valerie is a pseudo-dieter.

She genuinely believes she’s given up dieting, yet she continues to engage in dieting behaviors. 

As a result, she still experiences many of the side effects of dieting, including thinking about food all the time, struggling with intense cravings, feeling out of control with her “trigger foods” (i.e., ice cream and chips), and feeling frustrated, guilty and ashamed when she thinks she’s eaten badly.

Deeply Ingrained
As seen with Valerie, the diet mentality can be so deeply ingrained—or hidden under the guise of “health," "wellness,” "lifestyle" or “biohacking”—that you may not realize you're actually pseudo-dieting and that your restrictive eating behaviors are making you vulnerable to the same physical and psychological damage dieting causes

Falling into the pseudo-dieting trap is completely understandable given how prevalent and seductive our diet and wellness cultures are.

Here are some more examples of pseudo-dieting:

  • Restricting your eating to include only “clean,” “whole” or “unprocessed” foods.

  • Switching from calorie counting to macro counting for weight loss.

  • Limiting carb or fat grams regardless of what you want or what your body needs.

  • Determining what you deserve to eat based on what you ate earlier or if you exercised, rather than your hunger level.

  • Compensating for eating certain foods by doing extra exercise, skipping your next meal or eating less tomorrow.

  • Attempting to manage your weight with detoxes and cleanses.

  • Allowing yourself to only eat at certain times of the day despite your hunger level.

  • Becoming vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, etc. for the purpose of losing weight.

  • Bringing your own food to parties so you aren’t tempted to eat anything else.

  • Weighing and measuring your food to limit how much of it you eat.

Do you see yourself in any of these behaviors? I certainly do. My own journey included years of pseudo-dieting. Unbeknownst to me, I was a dieter in disguise!

A Dieter in Disguise
After I stopped focusing on calories in/calories out, I became obsessed with only eating “clean” foods. I also unnecessarily cut out gluten and dairy. I never considered any of this dieting. 

Instead, I claimed my restrictions were all in the name of wellness even though secretly my goal was weight loss. I mean, come on. If I thought eliminating gluten and dairy could possibly lead to weight gain, I would never have done it.

As Christy Harrison, the author of Anti-Diet and The Wellness Trap says, "If it involves restricting how you eat, demonizes certain food and is centered around the size of your body, it’s a diet."

Same Adverse Outcomes
Looking back, I can see how my pseudo-dieting resulted in the same adverse outcomes as my more official calorie-counting dieting. 

I still adhered to rigid food rules, fixated on food, skipped social events out of fear of eating “bad” foods, binged on sweets when I let myself have them, got angry at myself when I felt I ate poorly, overexercised to make up for my eating, and so on.

Releasing the Diet Mentality
Just like bona fide dieting, pseudo-dieting can disconnect you from your body inhibiting your ability to hear and honor the messages it’s sending you. 

And, as was the case with Valerie and me, all restrictive eating, no matter what it’s called, leaves you vulnerable to the pitfalls of dieting, from binge eating and weight cycling to food preoccupation and social withdrawal.

Escaping the dieting roller coaster and experiencing true food freedom requires letting go of your diet mentality and relearning how to nourish your body based on its internal cues versus external rules—that is, eat intuitively.

As pseudo-dieting behaviors can be quite subtle and disentangling from our pervasive, insidious diet culture can be very difficult (but not impossible!), it can be helpful to get support from an Intuitive Eating counselor, therapist, dietician or nutritionist so you can truly let go of dieting in all its various forms once and for all.

You Don't Have to Earn Your Pie. Or Make Up For It.

Along with all the delicious food, the Thanksgiving holiday often comes with an unsavory serving of diet culture.

For a pleasurable, peaceful eating experience, keep in mind these Thanksgiving don’ts:

1. You don’t have to earn it.
Despite what diet culture wants you to believe, you don’t have to do anything to earn your Thanksgiving meal. You don’t have to do an intense workout or not eat all day to deserve a spot at the table. 

2. You don’t have to make up for it.
Just like you don’t have to earn the right to eat, you don’t have to make up for your eating after the holiday by working out extra hard, skipping meals or starting a cleanse or diet.

3. You don’t have to justify it.
Whether it’s having seconds or thirds, filling your plate with mostly mashed potatoes, or eating pie for breakfast, you don’t have to justify your choices to anyone. You have the right to eat whatever you want, whenever you want.

4. You don’t have to feel bad.

Diet culture wants you to feel bad, out of control, weak, guilty and ashamed for eating a lot. You don’t.

It’s normal to sometimes eat simply for pleasure and to sometimes eat until you're stuffed, especially when enjoying foods that are novel and only around for a brief period.

5. You don’t have to participate.
Just like people who avoid discussing religion, politics and money, you don’t have to participate in diet and weight talk.

One approach for navigating it, especially when dining with a wide range of people, is to nonchalantly change the subject.

For example, if your cousin starts raving about his latest diet or your mom comments on someone's weight, steer the conversation toward a different topic, such as “I’d love to know what shows everyone is into right now” or “What’s your favorite holiday memory?”

Of course, these five don’ts are helpful to practice not just on Thanksgiving, but every day of the year.