FOOD+NUTRITION By Caroline Shermer, MS, RDN, LDN
Dieting Vs. Eating Disorders
Know the Signs & When To Get Help How would you describe your relationship with food? Our culture is obsessed with weight, diet, and exercise. It’s estimated that 35% of dieters will progress to disordered eating. From there, 30%–45% of those dieters will progress to a full eating disorder. Relationships with food are best described on a spectrum...
Normal Eating
Dieting
Disordered Eating
Eating Disorder
Normal Eating Normal eating is peaceful and positive. Food and exercise decisions are based solely on one’s intuition with little to no feelings of guilt or forcefulness. Since there is no perfect way of eating, this could look like three meals a day, snacking throughout the day, or a little bit of both. Normal eating doesn’t necessarily come naturally, it takes time and patience to learn how to eat intuitively.
Dieting Dieting, which is normalized and even praised in today’s world, comes with several side effects. Studies show that chronic dieting increases anxiety, depression, and the risk of binge eating. It often evokes a sense of failure, all the while lowering metabolism. It’s important to note that dieting isn’t just following a formal diet, such as keto or paleo. Dieting is following any rule that limits or restricts the time, type, or amount of food you eat. For example, dieting may look like spending years avoiding certain foods for hopes of weight loss yet never following a “true” diet. The difference between dieting and disordered eating is fairly gray...many disordered eating behaviors are no different than the prescribed rules of dieting. The degree of interference with daily life and amount of suffering that one experiences differentiate between dieting and disordered eating. 34
