Why We Eat What We Eat

Food and eating is so much more than just keeping ourselves alive and meeting certain nutritional and health standards. 

Factors that influence our food choice include appearance, cost, taste preference, time affluence (or lack thereof), convenience, complexities of flavor, how we feel, sustain life, emotion, religious practice, culture, region, texture, nostalgia, packaging. 

It’s too bad that many of our medical providers and what we’ve been taught in school focus so intently on only nutrients and food groups. The should of eating. 

A healthy relationship with food is one when we allow food to meet a range of needs and be influenced by a range of factors. When we learn to turn to and trust only "facts" and "numbers" about health and nutrition, other parts of our well-being suffer. These facts crowd out and down play our own body cues and personal experience and needs.

Maybe you have a teenage daughter who you'd like support in shepherding through adolescence - examining more topics like this in an intentional and supportive way. I'm getting ready to start the next cohort of the Brave Body Group for Girls + Support Circle for Moms.