How Does Diet Affect Our Self-Esteem? | Orlando Counselor

Modern food science has taught us that our diet affects our health, but how does it affect our self-esteem?

As a kid, we learn that some food choices are good for us, while others aren’t. Though this black-and-white explanation is easy for us to understand as children, without being taught what a healthy relationship with food looks like as an adult, we are left confused by our conflicting urges to eat foods that make us feel good and to avoid things that are “bad” for us. This confusion creates what is called cognitive dissonance, an uncomfortable feeling that arises when two thoughts in our mind conflict with one another. In this case, we might feel guilty for indulging in that cheesecake we have in the fridge because, as we have been taught, foods that lack nutritional properties are “bad” for us. While health science does value nutritious food choices over indulgent ones, this does not mean that we must give up all food that we eat solely because it makes us feel good. 

One way we can avoid the urge to shame ourselves for eating indulgent foods is to understand that the health effects of our diet include everything we eat, not just the most recent thing. It’s okay to indulge in “unhealthy” food so long as we make sure we’re comfortable with how our diet is balanced.

Body Image and Food

Our culture’s standards for beauty tell us that the shape of our body and how much body fat we have determines how beautiful we are. Though this perception of beauty may not represent how everyone in our culture really feels, it is certainly a message that our media exposes us to, for better or worse. On the other hand, health science teaches us that how many calories we consume determines whether we gain or lose body mass (caloric surplus vs. caloric deficit). When we add these two concepts together we might conclude that what and how much we eat determines how beautiful we are, a conclusion that is hardly objective but can still fuel a shame reaction when we decide to indulge ourselves. The truth is that what we eat does affect how we look, but looking a particular way doesn’t make us more or less beautiful. People find each other beautiful for different reasons, oftentimes reaching that conclusion with no concern about body size or shape.

If we do care about how our body looks however, which is not necessarily a narcissistic or shallow disposition, it’s okay to concern ourselves with our diet and how it affects how we look. A helpful way to replace shaming self-talk with a kinder voice is to develop an informed set of dietary goals, which permits a certain amount of indulgent food choices. That way when we cut out a slice of cheesecake, we can focus on enjoying instead of feeling that uncomfortable guilty feeling because we know that our choice still falls within our diet plan.

What does a healthy relationship with food look like?

A healthy relationship with food can look a number of different ways. While health science is relatively objective, how we feel about our own decision-making is much less so. One could have a well-balanced diet and a kitchen full of organic produce and still feel insecure about their behavior, while someone who is carefree and inconsistent with their diet might feel completely secure with their choices. There is no right or wrong way to feel about our eating behavior, but a reliable method for combating food shame is to move away from moralizing our behavior as “good” or “bad” and set some diet goals.

Some examples of diet goals are 

• To eat approximately the number of calories each day that allow our bodies’ to lose, gain, or maintain our current body mass. 
  • Each body’s number is different so it’s helpful to find out what our daily calorie expenditure is and base our calorie intake on that. 
• To decide how many whole foods we want to eat and how much room we have for indulgent foods.
• To feel good about ourselves despite the foods that we eat, (we don’t always have total control over what we put in our bodies, so being okay with falling outside of our diet is a helpful strength to develop.)

These goals can be as specific or nonspecific as we want, but having an idea of what we’re comfortable with when we decide what to eat can prevent us from feeling guilty about our choices. 

Take-Away

Feeling shameful about what we eat is an entirely normal problem, especially in a culture that sends such strong messages about body image and beauty. That being said, there are ways that we can protect our self-esteem from shaming self-talk and still indulge our love for comfort food at the same time. Informing ourselves about how what we eat affects our bodies is an empowering way to replace this self-talk and can become a new technique for self-care, one that gives us room for all of the things we like to eat.

Edited by TLC Intern: Alyssa Champion

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