What is a healthy relationship with food?

Forming a healthy relationship with food requires time and effort. A healthy relationship with food incorporates principles like relaxed eating, preference over position, balance, and flexibility.

Relaxed eating involves listening to your body’s hunger and fullness cues and being attuned to all aspects of food, including emotional and social aspects. It involves eating with flexibility and enjoyment without feelings of guilt or judgment. “Preference over position” emphasizes the importance of choices, adapting decisions to different situations, and avoiding rigid eating habits or food preferences that could lead to obsessive behaviors. Balance encompasses consuming a variety of foods, eating everything but in moderation, eating for both nourishment and pleasure, and rejecting restrictive diets for better physical and mental health. Flexibility involves being able to deviate from preferred food choices and quantities and allowing yourself to be spontaneous. Flexibility is not synonymous with a lack of self-control or poor health, and it’s an important aspect of a healthy relationship with food.^[1]