Changing Habits
You Don’t Have to Clean Your Plate, No Matter What Your Parents Said
Food Doesn’t Have Feelings
I feel sorry for the food because nobody else wants it, so I eat it to get rid of it, even though I really don’t like it and I’m not hungry.
These are the words of my client. Let’s call her Anna.* Anna is a smart, successful woman in her late 40s. She works from home and has a family: a husband, a college-aged son, and a teenage daughter.
Most of Anna’s life is well-organized — she’s got it together. But when it comes to food, she’s not thinking rationally.
She’s making decisions based on what she was taught in her childhood.
Like Anna, most of us have at least some kind of emotional attachment to food. We might have fond memories of baking with Grandma or a special taste for holiday meals.
But sometimes people receive such strong messages about food as children that they struggle to think clearly about how to feed themselves as adults.
Food as comfort
I definitely learned to associate food with love as a child. Had a hard day? Ice cream will help. Bored? Let’s bake some cookies. Company’s coming? Time to bake a cake.
