We are sent mixed messages when it comes to buying, preparing and eating foods. The serving sizes provided on the nutrition labels of food usually are not the same amount that is consumed. For example, in a box of original Triscuit crackers a serving size is the equivalent of eating six crackers. That is not the amount to fill up a medium sized bowl! While I believe that including the serving size is detrimental to having a healthy mentality towards food, it is important to recognize the importance of nutrition facts. Nutrition facts allows the buyer to understand ingredients that are being included in the food that will be consumed, but it does not mean serving sizes are necessary.
To me, the idea of a serving size is abstract. My body requires a different amount of calories than my brother’s body or your body! Firstly, my need for calories differs depending on what activities I have been partaking in during the day. If I just played a basketball game with friends I might be hungrier and need more food than if I need a snack after watching a movie on the couch. Within myself, my needs change. How is it possible for the serving size to cover all of the different scenarios?! Instead of trusting serving sizes that diet culture is trying to prescribe to every person in every different situation I think we should learn how to listen to and understand the cues our bodies tell us when it comes to hunger.
This idea of a process in trusting your body’s hunger cues is called intuitive eating. The term Intuitive eating was created in 1995 by Evelyn Trioble and Elyse Resch in a paper they wrote outlining the ten basic steps to intuitive eating. Their point can be summarized in the idea that we need to unlearn listening to how society wants us to eat and trust our bodies when it comes to eating.
Trioble and Resch make sure to differentiate a few things so intuitive eating can become intuitive to eaters. The most important difference they make is the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger. Physical hunger is when the body needs food to use as fuel. An example of a physical hunger cue is when your stomach growls. Emotional hunger would be eating ice cream to cheer you up when you are sad. While I believe ice cream is always the answer to putting a smile on your face, the emotional hunger cues are not the cues you should be listening to when following the rules of intuitive eating. You should be listening to your body and what your body is telling you in regards to eating food.
To summarize my points above, serving sizes being included on nutrition labels are not necessary for our health. They actually do the opposite, the serving size is trying to tell the buyer that everybody's body is the same and needs the same things which is simply not the case. We should be the regulator of how much we need to eat. This idea of intuitive eating is a mindfulness activity and connects the mind to the body in better understanding what our body tries to tell us.
WORKS CITED:
1. Jennings, Kerri-Ann. “A Quick Guide to Intuitive Eating.” Healthline, Healthline Media, 25 June 2019,
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/quick-guide-intuitive-eating.
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