How you eat is also how you live

Dietitian and therapist Ellyn Satter has been writing about food and eating for years. I often think of her words when I think about my own or others' eating troubles. According to Satter, the goal for all of us is to have "a joyful, competent relationship with food." Years of research have helped her define what it means, exactly, to be a healthy, competent eater:

Competent eaters have positive attitudes about eating and therefore are relaxed about it. They enjoy food and eating and they are comfortable with their enjoyment. They feel it is okay to eat food they like in amounts they find satisfying.

These three little sentences are about as radical as the Declaration of Independence was 225+ years ago. Consider all the ways in which our culture doesn't encourage us--especially women--to enjoy food, to feel it's OK to eat food we like in amounts we find satisfying. So many of us are terrified of food and of our own appetites; this little manifesto puts the power squarely where it belongs and where it always has been: with us.

Satter's latest newsletter takes her research a step further, in a direction I find very interesting indeed:

Competent eaters do better with feeding themselves and have positive health indicators. None of that surprised me. What did surprise me, although it shouldn’t have, is that competent eaters are emotionally and socially healthier than people with low levels of eating competence. They feel more effective, they are more self-aware, and they are more trusting and comfortable with themselves and with other people.

That's right, folks: Being competent with eating correlates with emotional and social health. Not dieting. Not weight loss. Not binge eating. But maintaining that joyful, competent relationship with food and eating.

Satter goes on to explain the connection:

Consider that being emotionally and socially healthy--emotionally competent, if you will--depends on being sensitive to and comfortable with what goes on inside you--knowing what you feel, what you want, who you are--and being honest with yourself and with others about it. Your comfort and honesty with yourself allow you to act on your feelings in a rational and productive way. You can appreciate not only your own feelings and wishes but those of other people and, as a consequence, be reasonably adept at working things out. Being competent with eating depends on exactly the same processes: being sensitive to and comfortable with what goes on inside you and being honest with yourself and others about it.

Amen, sister.

Bet you won't see any mainstream news stories about this

And by "this" I'm referring to the results of the biggest clinical trial of healthy eating ever, as reported by Sandy Szwarc over at Junkfood Science. We're talking about part one of the Women's Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial, which posted results like these:

• Healthy eating had no effects on rates of cardiovascular disease.
• Healthy eating had no effects on rates of breast or colorectal cancers.
• Women who followed a "healthy (lower-fat) diet did not wind up thinner.
• Women who didn't "watch what they ate" and ate more fat and calories didn't wind up fatter.

Did you read any news stories about this? Me neither.

Results from Part II are about to come out. I can't wait to not read those, too.

Overheard at the lunch table

Recently I had occasion to take my kids on an all-day excursion, to which they were allowed to each invite a friend. As we cruised the lunch joint we'd chosen, the 12-year-old friend seemed, well, anxious about what to choose. She wanted nachos, she said, but that wasn't healthy. (Sound familiar, anyone?) Her parents, she explained, have a rule about eating fruits and vegetables at every meal. She finally settled on nachos and a container of cut-up fruit. "My father says I don't eat enough for a girl my age," she commented. Gee, I wonder why; could she be learning from them to be afraid of food? If she has the genetic loading for an eating disorder, she's in big trouble.

As we ate, the conversation turned to a new movie, Ratatouille. This girl had seen it. "I really liked it," she reported, "except for all those rats who were so fat!" Then she went on: "It's so disgusting! They had all these bulges of so much fat!"

I was fairly stunned, but only because she was articulating what I know so many people think. I didn't know what to say, honestly, and what came to mind wasn't great: "In our family we don't feel fat is bad. People come in all shapes and sizes."

"But all they have to do is eat less and eat healthy and they wouldn't be fat!" she cried. Out of the mouths of babes, huh? "That's not actually true," I said, and then changed the subject, feeling like a coward. But I really didn't feel like taking it on, especially since I could see she was just parroting what she'd heard at home.

Later in the day, everyone else got ice cream, and so, I was happy to see, did she. The fruit went home unopened. For what it's worth.