The importance of maintaining a healthy relationship with food

BarcelonaAesthetic pressure and fatphobia are conditioning our relationship with food, and this leads to an increase in body dissatisfaction, a decrease in self-esteem, an increased probability of suffering from eating disorders, not to mention that it promotes unnecessary surgeries and aesthetic retouching and that it makes bodies that do not meet the standards invisible. All of these situations cause self-censorship and generate constant comparisons, leading many people to forget the need to maintain a healthy relationship with food. Based on this premise, pharmacist and dietitian-nutritionist Julia Palacios, specializing in eating disorders, has poured all her knowledge into the book Mucho más que pechuga y lechuga (Bruguera) with the aim of offering a new perspective on the relationship we have with food. A book that talks about fatphobia, biology, privileges, pleasure, and guilt, but above all about the importance of context and other topics not often found in a nutrition book. "I would love for people to let go of guilt when reading the book. I would also like us to accept that body diversity exists and that it is beautiful that it exists. And that we learn to reclaim pleasure. Women have had their pleasure taken away in many aspects of our lives, not just in food. And I think it is revolutionary to verbalize it, right? 'I like this,' 'I prefer this,' to also have a voice and vote on the topic of food," explains the author.

Thus, Julia Palacios advocates for an approach to nutrition that is compatible with each person's reality and context, and recalls that eating is essential for life and, therefore, cannot include concepts like burden or guilt. Palacios acknowledges that she has written the book in the feminine, because professionally she specifically supports women. "But also because we are the target of this diet culture/dictatorship and aesthetic pressure," she says. However, her postulates are applicable to everyone. She recalls that having health is synonymous with having quality of life and regrets that health has become another demand of our daily lives. A demand that, as with nutrition, also does not take into account people's context, especially considering that healthcare does not reach everyone equally, especially, as Palacios specifies, if you are a woman, poor, fat, Black, or have some type of mental health problem. In this regard, the pharmacist warns of the danger of motivational phrases such as "We are what we eat," "Move more and eat better," "Your health depends on you," "Your body is your business card," or "There are no excuses for not taking care of yourself," and insists that changes are not possible through obligation and guilt.

In the book, she breaks down the factors that influence our health, such as the environment, medical care, genetics, individual behavior, and social circumstances, to make it clear that not everything depends on us. Palacios emphasizes that, even "in what depends on us, we are not always given the facilities to carry it out": "For example, can I choose what I eat? In principle, yes, but something that will limit it very much is my purchasing power. Or the time I have to cook or go shopping. This also disconnects us greatly from the product. Is it my responsibility to choose and do I have options? Yes, but often limited".

The diet dictatorship

Alert that the diet culture is everywhere and that we must combat this culture/dictatorship to be able to reconcile ourselves with food and our bodies, and insists that the relationship with food needs context to have a healthy relationship with it. Palacios remarks that we are biologically designed to enjoy food and that we must not give up pleasure. Yes, it is necessary, on the other hand, to put guilt aside. We need to eat as much as we breathe and even though we have received stimuli for many years to eat or not eat certain things, "change is possible." "Perhaps it won't be easy to change the way we relate to food –he says–, but the effort is worth it for what we will achieve, which is to live more calmly. Because, curiously, feeding ourselves is the only basic need about which we impose so many doubts and on which we place such a large magnifying glass. From obligation, changes are not possible. Or, more accurately, they are possible, but they have an expiration date".

The pharmacist states that feeding requires attention, awareness, and decision, keeping in mind that feeding and nutrition are related but not equal processes. She also warns of the danger of moralizing foods –eating a salad, good; eating a croissant, bad– and recalls that no food is good or bad in itself. Once again, it depends on the context and how we incorporate it into our lives. In this sense, she recalls that dietary restriction has physical and mental consequences and that the fear of gaining weight is a social construct fueled by daily messages. In this regard, she acknowledges that there are many myths surrounding feeding, such as that we should stop eating carbohydrates because they make us fat, whether plant-based proteins are better than animal ones, or that eating more fat is synonymous with storing more fat. The important thing, assures Palacios, is to learn to listen to and decipher our body to attend to what it needs, and this has as much to do with hunger as with satiety. Mindful eating reduces impulsivity and, by adapting intake to our needs, manages to decrease anxiety and guilt and allows us to enjoy all foods without fear.

Palacios concludes: "We need to get rid of the idea that only what is grilled or boiled is healthy, because with that we are saying that only what is less tasty is healthy. And besides being untrue, we must remember that if we want to maintain a good diet over time, it must also be pleasing to the palate." And he adds: "Is it interesting to eat a varied diet? Undoubtedly, yes. A nutritionally complete diet has vegetables, has sources of protein, sources of carbohydrates, has fats, has everything, because it is what our body needs; it needs everything." In summary, taking care of yourself with food is understanding your body's needs and how to integrate them into our reality.