How to Heal Your Relationship with Food: A Personal Journey
Food is something we can't escape - we need it to survive. Yet for so many people, that relationship with food becomes complicated, painful, and all-consuming. As a naturopath who has lived through this myself, I want to share what I've learned coming out the other side.
Trigger warning: This post touches on disordered eating. Please take care of yourself first.
What Are Eating Disorders, Really?
Eating disorders are not about food. The food behaviors are a symptom - the disorder itself is a mental health condition. According to The Butterfly Foundation (a nationwide Australian organization supporting eating disorder recovery), eating disorders affect people of all genders, ages, and body sizes. There is no one physical "look" for an eating disorder.
Critically, eating disorders are associated with some of the highest mortality rates of any mental illness. They are not a lifestyle choice, not a privilege, and not something someone can "just eat their way out of."
Signs to be aware of include:
Preoccupation with food, weight, or body image
Rigid food rules
Avoiding social situations involving food
Compensatory behaviors (e.g., excessive exercise)
Anxiety, guilt, or shame around eating
Why "Just Eat More" Doesn't Work
This well-meaning advice misses the point entirely. Eating disorders are rooted in thoughts, beliefs, coping mechanisms, and nervous system dysregulation - not a calorie deficit.
There's also what's known as the "whack-a-mole effect": if you address only the surface-level behavior without working on the underlying drivers, a new harmful behavior often emerges in its place - obsessive exercise, binging, orthorexia, or other patterns. This is why holistic, root-cause support is essential.
Creating a Healthier Environment
Your environment - both online and offline - profoundly shapes your relationship with food and body. Practical steps include:
Curate your social media feed to reflect body diversity, not one narrow ideal. Be wary of "what I eat in a day" content - it rarely tells the full story and ignores your individual needs.
Remove food labels. There is no universally "good" or "bad" food. Context matters.
Adopt a zero-tolerance policy for body shaming - including toward yourself.
Redirect conversations that center on body criticism.
What Helped Me Heal
Over more than a decade, several shifts made a meaningful difference:
1. Changing my relationship with movement Exercise stopped being about control or appearance, and became about how I wanted to feel - strong, energized, mobile. I now train at a gym with no mirrors, which keeps the focus on form and feeling rather than appearance.
2. Seeing food as nourishment, not numbers Calories are not the full picture. Two foods with the same calorie count can have completely different effects on your body. When I started studying naturopathy - learning the biochemistry of how nutrients interact with cells - food transformed from something to fear into something to fuel my health, hormones, brain, bones, and energy.
3. Improving self-talk Working on how you speak to yourself is one of the most valuable investments you can make in your health. Ask yourself: would I speak to my best friend this way?
4. Healing doesn't happen in isolation Environmental changes, supportive conversations, therapy, and professional guidance all play a role. Recovery is not linear and it doesn't happen overnight - but the voice in your head does get quieter.
Resources
The Butterfly Foundation - eating disorder support, education, and a national helpline
Your GP or primary healthcare practitioner - a great first step to being referred to the right support