Healthy eating is having a healthy relationship with food

Healthy eating is a common phrase in wider society and in schools. Here, nutritionist Jennifer Nash defines the term through a positive body image and eating disorder prevention lens. Read on if you’ve ever wondered how to teach children about food in a way that nurtures body image and supports children to have a healthy relationship with food.

First up, we’re a body image organisation, why are we talking about food?

We know that body image is linked to the practice of health-promoting behaviours. Research has shown that body dissatisfaction is associated with lower levels of physical activity, lower fruit and vegetable intake and unhealthy weight-control behaviours[1], whereas positive body image means children are more likely to engage in self-care, intuitive eating (more on this here) and physical activity[2] and less likely to develop disordered eating behaviours or an eating disorder[3]. How we feel about our bodies is inextricably linked to our eating behaviours and our relationship with food.

Fostering a healthy relationship with food counteracts negative body image symptoms reported by children, such as food restriction, thin-ideal internalisation and weight bias[4],[5]. So having a healthy relationship with food is one way we can treat our bodies with care and respect, and thereby build better body image. That’s why we are so passionate about helping children to develop a healthy relationship with food.

Check out this joyful food positive healthy eating project here

What are some of the issues with the term ‘healthy eating’?

What even is ‘health’?

Diet culture (see this post if you want a refresh on the meaning behind this term) likes to govern what is ‘healthy’ or not, from dictating body ideals and equating these with ‘health’, to placing moral value on the composition of your diet and demonising certain foods. As we know, diet culture has its roots in, and is fundamentally interwoven with, other forms of systemic oppression, including ableism, racism and classism, and it’s worth reminding ourselves of this when considering diet culture’s presentation of ‘healthy eating’. For so many, eating as diet culture dictates to be ‘healthy’ is unaffordable, inaccessible, inadvisable or counter-cultural.

Teaching food hierarchies

Let’s pause for a moment and ask, is chocolate (substitute any food referred to as ‘junk food’) bad for you? Is it unhealthy? This topic is too complex to address in this post (does sugar actually cause type 2 diabetes as we’ve been told in the media? Is ultra-processed food really making us all sick?) but it’s worth acknowledging here the issue with labelling food in this way. Nutrition is complex and nuanced, with scientists continuing to debate the relationship of nutrition to health and certain illnesses, and yet these labels oversimplify foods. Ice cream, a bad food, does in fact contain protein, fat (which we need!), calcium, vitamin D – all of which are deemed ‘good’ for our bodies.

Now adults may use these labels understanding some of the nuances behind them, but children lack such understanding and absorb these simplified messages around food. Such labels introduce unwanted and false dichotomies around food that can lead to unhealthy eating behaviours and attitudes. We prefer food-positive approaches to ‘healthy eating’, which see all foods as equal and teach the multiple roles food plays in our lives and the importance of a good relationship with food and our bodies.

Acknowledging our eating differences

Another important thing to acknowledge when it comes to pushing a certain ‘healthy’ way of eating is the different eating preferences children might have, which exist for all sorts of reasons, one of which might be neurodivergence. Evidence shows that children who are autistic are more likely to have a restricted diet and greater food refusal than their peers, due to factors such as higher levels of sensory sensitivity, preference for routine, behavioural inflexibility or gastrointestinal symptoms[6]. For some children, eating in a certain way can be particularly challenging and feel unsafe, and therefore pushing ‘healthy’ foods on them can be distressing and stigmatising.

Fostering a healthy relationship with food

This is a complex and emotionally sensitive area, so please seek help (see further resources below) if you or the children in your care are struggling with your relationship with food. Eating disorders (and disordered eating) are complex and dangerous conditions, but there is help and support available.

Here are a few ways you can get started with fostering a healthy relationship with food for the children in your care:

·         Get rid of any morally loaded language when it comes to food: there are no “good” or “bad” foods, food is just food. Beware of other terms used to replace “good” or “bad” and acknowledge these may still be creating hierarchies around food (e.g. “sometimes foods” “fun foods” “this food does a little/lot”). Nutrition is nuanced and cannot be oversimplified in this way, and these labels can be confusing to children when they don’t work in certain contexts (e.g. one child’s “sometimes food” is actually another child’s “everyday food”).

·         ‘Health’ is more than what we eat: work on disentangling the diet culture mentality that what we eat dictates our health. Nutrition is one part of health-promoting behaviours. What other health-promoting behaviours can you focus on with your children? [Clue: talking about our feelings, joyful movement, restorative sleep, rest and socialising are all health promoting behaviours!]

·         Teaching children that food has multiple roles in our lives: yes, nutrition is one part of food, but food has so many other roles in our daily lives and it’s important children understand this to develop a healthy relationship with food for the future. Food helps our body function, but it’s also for social occasions, for family gatherings, for parties – for fun!

If you are an educator and interested in finding educational resources which teach children how to develop a healthy relationship with food, check out our teaching materials on food-positive healthy eating.

[1] Neumark-Sztainer et al. (2006). Does body satisfaction matter? Five-year longitudinal associations between body satisfaction and health behaviors in adolescent females and males. Journal of Adolescent Health, 39(12), 244-251.

[2] Frisen, A. & Homqvist, K. (2010). What characterizes early adolescents with a positive body image? A qualitative investigation of Swedish girls and boys. Body Image, 7(3), 205-212.

[3] Tiggemann, A. & Clark, L. (2016). Predictors and health-related outcomes of positive body image in adolescent girls: A prospective study. Developmental Psychology, 52(3), 463-474.

[4] Davison et al. (2003). A longitudinal examination of patterns in girls’ weight concerns and body dissatisfaction from ages 5 to 9 years. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 33(3), 320-332. 

[5] Damiano et al. (2015). Dietary restraint of 5-year-old girls: Associations with internalization of the thin ideal and maternal, media and peer influences. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 48(8), 1166-1169. 

[6] Kinnaird et al. (2019). Eating as an autistic adult: An exploratory qualitative study. PLoS ONE 14(8): e0221937.