More About Food Shaming and Food Guilt…

For those of us who’ve experienced restrictive diets, recall your very first diet. Why did you start it? For fun? Because diets are the most enjoyable use of your time, energy, and money?

We don’t think so. Putting facetiousness aside, the common root for many on restrictive diets is the message that our bodies didn’t look the “right” way. We were told our body was “too” big, and that we should “watch what we eat.”

But that’s nonsense, right? Essentially, people were implying that we didn’t meet their standard of “healthy.” This raises questions about the origin of their standards and their right to judge. The underlying message was that something was “wrong” with our bodies, casting negativity on our health or deeming us unattractive and unworthy of love, belonging, or respect.

Understanding Shame vs. Guilt

Shame is the feeling of being unworthy of belonging, love, or connection. It’s external. Someone made you feel unworthy or “wrong” – in childhood, school, work, or through the pervasive diet culture in media and social networks.

Commonly, food shaming manifests in dictating what you “should” eat – like dangerously low calorie diets, specific superfoods, or absurd restrictions on sugar and seed oils.

Shame and guilt about food differ significantly. Shame involves others making you feel unworthy, while guilt is an internal feeling of not living up to your own values. Brené Brown notes that guilt is “adaptive and useful” – by aligning with your values, you can correct actions and alleviate guilt. Values from within differentiate shame from guilt.

What You Can Do About Food Shame

So, examine if you’re feeling shame about food or whether it’s guilt – if it’s shame, then you’re best served by exploring how to neutralize the shame through shifting your self-talk to your values, to ground yourself in the values and virtues that actually help you live a more fulfilling and peaceful life, while also providing you some psychological and emotional safety from the shame-based standards around what you eat.

Food shaming, often subtle and in close relationships, requires recognition and resistance. Not taking it personally and refusing to act on it can foster tranquility.

That’s what we explore in these blogs around Food Shaming – the process of how it starts, how to neutralize it, and how to reframe your eating choices and body image so you have all of the tools you need to live your best life, listening to your body, and finding the way of living and eating that brings you the most joy. The blogs are written by some of the best intuitive eating experts and dietitians in the nation, and they’re always free.

And if you’re ready to explore a little deeper – the Way app is easy to download and the Mindful Shifts Pathway was intentionally designed to help reframe these shame-oriented standards around body image, with 2-8 minute sessions focused specifically on neutral observation and reframing body image to align with your values.

Join 10,000+ people who’ve started their journey. We’ve made it affordable at less than $10/month, because our mission is to make your health and happiness, and Way was named the 2023 Best Non Diet App by Healthline, the biggest health website on the internet.