Developing long-term healthy eating habits can feel overwhelming, especially in a world filled with mixed messages about nutrition and body image.
Carol Peterson, Ph.D., with the University of Minnesota Medical School, offers evidence-based advice on building sustainable habits, combating diet culture, and cultivating a positive relationship with food and body image.
Q: How can people build long-term healthy eating habits?
Dr. Peterson: Trying to determine what is “healthy” based on what we see in the media, social media, and even published -scientific research is extremely confusing because of oversimplifications. Research findings support the importance of eating nutritionally rich foods for long-term health, as well as prioritizing vegetable and fruit consumption. Behavioral research suggests building habits slowly by making very small changes to start, rather than trying to make a number of dietary modifications all at once. One example of a goal would be to add one fruit or vegetable to one meal for one week and, if that works, increase the goal the following week.
Q: How does societal pressure and diet culture impact eating habits and body image?
Dr. Peterson: Societal -ideals of weight and shape can be extremely harmful, especially paired with the myth that everyone should meet these ideals by exercising and controlling -eating. Factors determining body weight are extremely complex, but genetics are especially impactful, which limits the extent to which we can change our size. The negative effects of diet culture, which promotes the unhealthy pursuit of weight loss through dietary restriction, are significant and contribute to disordered eating, weight stigma, and widespread body image disturbance. Experiencing weight stigma is especially harmful, and some research suggests that enduring body size discrimination is more dangerous to one’s health than body weight itself.
Q: What advice would you give to someone struggling with body image who wants to improve their eating habits?
Dr. Peterson: Research has established that feeling worse about one’s body image can lead to disordered eating, especially overeating. The belief that criticizing one’s own appearance can be used as “motivation” to change eating habits is just not supported by science. Striving towards an acceptance of one’s shape and weight, viewing exercise and eating as a form of self-care rather than a method to change appearance, and appreciating the functions of one’s body with gratitude – for example, that our legs allow us to dance – can be helpful. Some research also supports the use of mindfulness practices in improving body image and eating patterns, as well as limiting “body checking” behaviors like excessive mirror viewing.
Q: What are some simple changes people can make to begin establishing healthy eating patterns?
Dr. Peterson: One of the most effective treatments for eating and weight issues is cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). The first component of CBT is to establish planned meals and snacks. Spending a few minutes at the start of each day to think about when and what you will eat can be helpful in planning – for example, bringing food to work or school – preventing overeating, and increasing the consumption of nutrient-rich foods. One of the most well-researched approaches to changing eating patterns is self-monitoring. Recording what you eat on paper or digitally increases self-awareness, and has been found to contribute to healthier eating patterns.
Q: How does your research at the U of M impact clinical care?
Dr. Peterson: Our research team is working to determine the psychological and -neurobiological factors that keep people stuck in an eating disorder, along with treatment interventions that can target these factors to help people recover. Our research is investigating reward processes, including how planning to binge eat impacts the brain and behaviors, the role of emotions – including disgust, guilt, sadness and anxiety – in maintaining eating disorders, and treatments that impact habits related to eating patterns. Our goal is to develop and refine treatment interventions that can be used in clinics as well as self-help approaches, including technology and wearable devices to -support eating disorder recovery.
Dr. Carol Peterson is a professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and director of the multi-site T32 Midwest Regional Postdoctoral Training Program in Eating Disorder Research. Her research focuses on examining novel approaches to treating eating disorders by targeting the psychological and neurobiological factors that maintain these conditions.