Are you in a healthy food relationship?

Have you ever stepped back and wondered about your relationship to food? I’m not just talking about the foods you like and don’t like or the daily habits you seem to have picked up along the way regarding what you eat. I’m talking about how important a role food plays in your life and the conversations you find yourself having when you are considering your next meal. Ever consider that your relationship with food is as important as the foods you choose?

For me, I have spent many years examining the importance of the foods we eat. I learnt about the basics of nutrition and the role ingredients played in our health. I learnt about the correlation between certain foods and the illnesses we are surrounded by. Food, for a while, became something to be measured, controlled, removed and isolated. I’ve studied and experimented with my own way of eating and began to find my own path.

After studying nutrition, I followed up my studies by going to cookery school and learning what I had not learnt about in college. I learnt about tastes and flavours, cultural traditions and the health of soil where I live. My strict attitude to food, as something to be manipulated and managed, began to soften, as I was exposed to a world where pleasure and the joy of cooking came to the fore.

You can imagine the complete pain I became in the initial years after study. I had a viewpoint on just about everything food related, and didn’t mind sharing those opinions, whether they were asked for or not. Yet, over the years, as I went from clinic to clinic and client to client, I realised there was another factor that I had not fully taken into consideration. The person.

When I talk about food now, I place the person firmly in the centre of the picture. It is not about guiding them through the maze of nourishing foods and cooking suggestions. It is about unravelling where the person is with their daily diet and eating habits. It’s about understanding how food makes them feel, how important it is in their daily lives and how food can help them feel better about their sense of wellbeing.

As we are pushed and pulled in a world of science and information, as we learn so much about how important the food we eat and where it comes from is, can we find a way back to ourselves? Can we begin to explore and find our own path towards a body we feel good about and a healthy food relationship that we embrace?