So what is normal eating? Fast food for lunch? Eating out once a week? Cooking all your meals. Eating whatever you want? Feeling guilty eating what you like?
Saw a short discussion in the NYT about an article on normal eating on the PsychCentral blog.
Eating has become a minefield. We are constantly told what we should be not eating.
Apart from eating more fruit and veg, currently it seems that most advice is restrictive. Eat less fat, eat less carbs, don’t eat this, don’t eat that…
The article gives examples of the “experts” tips on how to eat better – which most of the time really means don’t do this if you want to lose weight.
How did eating become a test of willpower and the inevitable guilt that follows not having the willpower of saint? Once we reach adulthood, how many of us don’t have huge hang ups about eating?
My thoughts on this are that what has become abnormal about eating is not how we eat, but the large choice of constantly available food.
Our ancestors were programmed to want to eat everything in sight, since the next meal might not be for a while. There would have been times when the food supply would not have been stable. We had to hunt or forage for food.
We also developed a taste for high calorie foods for making sure we had sufficient energy. We often needed to have a plenty of energy to obtain our next meal.
So a normal diet is eating whatever is available. Unfortunately with supermarkets full of food, fast food restaurants on many corners and the candy machine at work, food is way too available for most of us. We just follow our predetermined behaviors and eat lots of tasty high calorie foods.
Is it hopeless? I hope not.
[tags]normal eating, willpower, guilt, ancestors[/tags]
