Healthy Eating Revisited, Part III

An overview of what is meant by healthy eating may uncover the nefarious intention behind a seemingly harmless concept, but we are all still left with the nagging feeling that food choice reflects who we are as people, how much we care about ourselves and how long and healthy a life we will live.

There is a stark difference between unearthing the facts and what feels like a deeply personal decision about how we live.

Yes the path that led us all to the conundrum of healthy eating is unfortunate, yet we all still live in this world.

For people with eating disorders, the path to recovery is fraught with countless decisions about food that already feel impossible and then become even harder when judgment and health become an added factor.

For people with disordered eating, it’s perpetually confusing to feel so hemmed in by fears of food and also have to contend with constant messages about health.

For parents, there is persistent guilt that every meal reflects whether or not you truly care for your child’s health and well-being.

And for everyone else, the overlay of health and criticism intrudes upon meals and creates an entirely new level of concern when it comes to how to eat, a basic fact of life for everyone.

The most important advice about eating is also the most simple. It’s something I have written on this blog many times. Eat everything but fewer processed foods and more real foods. It’s general but specific enough and attempts to limit rules so there is sufficient room to be flexible in the way we all need to live and eat.

The deeper problem is that even for people who decide these simple guidelines are sufficient, how does one face the barrage of news about food and health, avoid the messages reiterated by friends and family and instead focus on the important parts of daily life?

The first step is to believe and acknowledge that the endless stories linking food and health are not based on science. They are almost exclusively hearsay masquerading as fact in order to attract eyes to content. The overwhelming interest in these stories drives the cycle and reinforces the notion that food and health are inextricably linked. There’s the illusion that new, critical facts are always on the way, yet almost no useful nutrition knowledge has been uncovered at all.

If one can take this step, the process afterwards is a lot easier. Think a lot less about what you eat and how you eat and when you eat it. Spending too much time obsessing about food is a large part of the problem. People who spend limited time planning and eating their meals are more able to focus on more fulfilling parts of life.

This doesn’t mean ignore enjoyable events in restaurants or never have dinners at home one enjoys. The goal is not to link food choice with personal success.

The advice looks easier on paper than it is to put into practice. Ignoring the news about nutrition and the general acceptance of that news as both true and important makes it hard to stand by the opposite point of view.

But people survived many years less focused on the food they ate while health and longevity improved dramatically. There is no magic in eating a certain way. The real goal in life is living.