What is normal eating, anyway?

24th June 2009

What is normal eating, anyway?

posted in Anorexia, Binge Eating Disorder, Bulimia, ED-NOS, Eating Disorders, Health, Nutrition & Fitness, Mental Health, Non-profits, Purging Disorder, Recovery |

I came across this definition of “normal” eating at The Joy Project and thought I’d pass along. How much of this do you follow? What’s normal eating like for you?

Normal eating is being able to eat when you are hungry and continue eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it- not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to use some moderate constraint in your food selection to get the right food, but NOT being so restrictive that you miss out on pleasurable foods. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad, or bored, or just because it feels good. Normal eating is three meals a day, most of the time, but it can also be choosing to munch along. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful when they are fresh. Normal eating is overeating at time: feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. It is also undereating at time and wishing you had more. Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life.

In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your emotions, your schedule, your hunger, and your proximity to food.*

The site also gives a hunger satiety scale for anyone with disordered relationships to food to fill out to help them reconnect with bodily cues on hunger and satiety — download it here (PDF) — and explains what a well-rounded meal is and why it’s so important especially for people recovering from food-related addictions. IN all, The Joy Project sounds like an awesome organization. Here’s what they’re about:

The Joy Project is a non-profit, grassroots organization based on the philosophy of using real-world, workable solutions to end the epidemic of eating disorders. We work towards reducing the rate and severity of eating disorders by supporting and conducting research, education, and support programs.

…The goal of The Joy Project is to fill in the gaps caused by inadequate access to eating disorder treatment, and create a dialogue between researchers, treatment professionals, and those affected by eating disorders, in order to foster a better understanding of how to help people not only recover, but remain recovered. The Joy Project empowers eating disordered individuals by allowing them to use their own experience to advocate for themselves and others, and to create a community of support and hope among those who share the illness.

The organization offers support groups in the Minneapolis area and is nationally championing for change in ED diagnostic criteria, specifically to eliminate weight requirements for anorexia. I am a big supporter of this initiative, as one of the reasons I was diagnosed with ED-NOS and not anorexia is because I didn’t meet the stringent weight requirement. The fact that I lost much more weight in a shorter amount of time and was at a much higher starting point than most girls and women diagnosed with anorexia proved irrelevant in a diagnosis. This is crucial only in that an anorexia diagnosis commands more respect and action from health insurance companies than a diagnosis of bulimia or ED-NOS, even if the latter disorders pose just as grave and deadly a risk. Read more about the organization’s current goals and initiatives here.

The website also gives sample meal plans for people learning how to eat healthily and normally again and offers “INspirational” images of women of all body shapes who have achieved notable success. Tips for avoiding relapse are also given, along with anti-binge strategies. In recovery? Make a list of recovery projects and goals to help you through it or read tips on how to help loved ones struggling with an eating disorder. Seriously, I just can’t gush enough about The Joy Project. Go check it out.

* Taken from “Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family” 1999, Kelcy Press

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 10:10 am and is filed under Anorexia, Binge Eating Disorder, Bulimia, ED-NOS, Eating Disorders, Health, Nutrition & Fitness, Mental Health, Non-profits, Purging Disorder, Recovery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

1 On June 24th, 2009, Henchminion said:

That’s a very cool website.

Slightly off topic, the other day I ran across a blog post with references to the eating habits of medieval kings and it reminded me of your paper on meat and masculinity. Check it out: http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2009/06/i-would-hurt-fly.html .

posted on June 24th, 2009 at 1:46 pm

2 On June 24th, 2009, Jen said:

Thats a great website! Thanks for sharing. I loved the body positive/acceptance mad-lib. ^^

posted on June 24th, 2009 at 3:27 pm

3 On June 24th, 2009, Bronwyn said:

Thanks for the website- It looks like it might help recenter me.

posted on June 24th, 2009 at 4:08 pm

4 On June 24th, 2009, Rachel_in_WY said:

My cousin and I were talking about this last Thanksgiving. She recovered from an ED while we were both in our teens, but still reflects on it often. I’ve been trying to use the word “luxury” as a synonym for “privilege” in the courses I teach. So after Thanksgiving dinner she said to me “overeating and thinking nothing of it, barely noticing it, is a luxury reserved for those who’ve never had an ED.” I thought that was a great use of the word.

posted on June 24th, 2009 at 4:55 pm

5 On June 24th, 2009, Lynn (The Actors Diet) said:

Very interesting! What IS normal, indeed?

posted on June 24th, 2009 at 5:26 pm

6 On June 24th, 2009, meerkat said:

That’s a great definition of normal eating. Some of the intuitive eating rules can come off as really strict–stop immediately when you get full no matter what the situation, for example. It’s normal to eat a little more when you have something particularly good, or there is just a little left and it’s going to get thrown out, and it’s not true that you can always have more later.

posted on June 24th, 2009 at 6:55 pm

7 On June 24th, 2009, Rosalie said:

In my mind, “normal” eating is how I ate before I became aware that certain foods were considered good and others, bad. It was before I was aware of my body, aware that people’s bodies looked different. Before the age of 10-11, I never noticed that bodies came in SUCH different shapes. I had no idea that I might gain weight or lose weight depending on how much I was eating… it just never occurred to me that weight and food were related. Heh. Then I learned about nutrition facts, i learned about RDA for nutrients, and from them on, how I ate was basically driven by the “science” out there.

I think in the ideal, most natural relationship with eating, I would treat eating as I do sleeping. In other words, some days I sleep more, some days less. In the end it all evens out. Some days I sleep when/where it’s convenient. There’s a certain sleeping regimen (time, place, amount, etc) that’s most comfortable for me, but I don’t need to try too hard to adhere to it.

posted on June 24th, 2009 at 8:25 pm

8 On June 24th, 2009, d said:

i love this quote on normal eating! i got a copy of this from my dietician during a residential stay in canada. i have it posted on my fridge to give me encouragement.

posted on June 24th, 2009 at 8:59 pm

9 On June 24th, 2009, D said:

Wow Rachel, I read your blog literally everyday but this post must be FATE for me.

This organization is exactly the type of place I want to work for as a social worker. I am getting a master’s degree in social work with an emphasis in community organizing so this place is right up my ally.

I am going to keep close tabs on The Joy Project and maybe volunteer/work for it in the future. We NEED organizations like this. Thanks for telling me about it, not I know it’s out there!

posted on June 24th, 2009 at 9:03 pm

10 On June 25th, 2009, Meowser said:

The quote is from Ellyn Satter. I first encountered it in Carol Johnson’s Self-Esteem Comes in All Sizes, and I’ve always loved it.

posted on June 25th, 2009 at 3:41 am

11 On June 26th, 2009, Lori said:

I don’t think eating because you are sad or bored is any more (or less) normal than not eating some foods, or eating less than you might like, because you are trying to lose weight. I guess the word “normal” strikes me as judgemental here, because the implication is that to do otherwise is abnormal. If we mean by “normal” that lots of people do it, well, that could be anything, so I take it to mean “OK” versus “Not Okay.” Taken like this, why does this construction deem it OK to eat when you are not hungry, but Not OK to not eat when you are?

posted on June 26th, 2009 at 7:46 am

12 On June 26th, 2009, Rachel said:

@Lori: I think “normal” is used because so many people feel like their eating habits aren’t normal and that they’re strangely different from everyone else. I took it to mean “healthy” versus “not healthy.” Eating because you are bored is a natural and sometimes even healthy reaction; self-starvation in the name of weight-loss is neither.

posted on June 26th, 2009 at 10:28 am

13 On June 28th, 2009, Jera said:

Great organization. I hope that they do make serious inroads to changing the dSM criteria and that they succeed. I also became anorexic at a higher weight than most and despite losing a drastic amount of weight, I remained right at the edge of “normal” meaning I got a lot of “you look great!” as opposed to “you have a problem”.
My only worry with changing the DSM criteria to eliminate the weight requirement is that insurance companies will revise their policies in response and only agree to treat “real” anorexics who have not only had the weight loss but who ended up dangerously underweight as a result. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the criteria revised but then wind up with certain divisions in it (sort of akin to “restricting anorexia” and “purging” anorexia) where one subtype of anorectics were “underweight” anorexics and the other subtype was “normal” anorexics.

Oh, this culture and our damn insurance companies and so-called medical professionals. If only our wanting all of this could make it so.

posted on June 28th, 2009 at 11:09 am

14 On July 16th, 2009, Beth said:

Learning to allow myself to eat what I want when I want it ended up also making it easier to stop eating when I’m full, and only eat when it’s actually necessary or pleasurable. I was doing a lot of eating just because I was afraid of getting hungry, and eating stuff I didn’t really want. That’s what dieting can do to your mind.

posted on July 16th, 2009 at 12:44 pm