“How often can I eat pizza?” Rejecting the food rules of diet culture

Written by Delilah Bisase, RD

One thing that fad diets typically have in common is that they have rules, and usually a lot of them. Such as you can eat a certain type of food only a certain amount of times per week. Or you can only consume specific amounts of certain types of foods. Or you just can’t eat certain types of foods at all. Oh lord. Let’s get into this. 

Junk food (or what I like to call ‘fun food’)

For this post I want to focus on rules regarding our intake of the not so nutritious foods, which are what I like to call “fun foods”. Foods that have minimal nutritional health benefits, but are around essentially just for fun because they taste yummy. Clients often ask me, “How many times a week can I eat pizza? Pastries?” And my response to that is “Once in a while, every now and then whenever you have the taste for it is fine”.  And that is often met with a follow up question “...but how many times can I eat it?”, as in searching for a specific number. I try to refrain from giving hard numbers on how often to eat or not eat fun foods. Prescribing a specific number of how many times to eat a fun food per week is not realistic, it is the opposite of intuitive eating, and will thwart any attempts at achieving food freedom.

This is where the nutrition education comes into play. As a dietitian, I teach clients how to identify foods that are nutrient dense vs ones that are not; these are also known as “junk foods”. You want the nutrient dense foods to take up the majority of space in your diet, and the junk foods to occupy a much smaller space. It’s going to take some experimentation on the client’s part to discover exactly what that looks like for them. When you reject diet culture and choose to listen to your body, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll go overboard on the junk food. Why? Because junk food doesn't contain the nutrients to sustain health, and you will absolutely feel it in your body. You may feel sluggish, lethargic, or even have brain fog. It’s a matter of including the junk food in an amount & frequency that feels just right, not too much that your body feels terrible, but also not too little that you’re being overly restrictive with yourself. You gotta find the sweet spot! All pun intended 😊

The combination of being in tune with how your body feels and nutrition education is all the rules and parameters you need. If you are truly paying attention to your body’s cues and employing your nutrition knowledge about balanced meals, it’s highly unlikely that fun foods will outweigh your consumption of nutrient dense foods. 

Trusting yourself

I will preface these next thoughts with disclaiming that I am absolutely not a trained psychologist. I realize that for humans to function, we need some level of order and organization, which naturally includes rules. In terms of food and dietary habits, I think that when people have so many rules regarding food it in a way makes them feel good that they are able to practice such discipline and follow the rules; kind of like being a good citizen who follows the rules of society. However our eating habits are not a reflection of how we function in society, rather our eating habits are a window into understanding our relationship with food, and ultimately our relationship with ourselves. 

Time to reflect

I feel that diet culture has conditioned many people to put too much control and influence into an external authority over their well being, when in fact we as individuals are the ultimate authority over our wellness. Following diet culture imposed food rules in a sense shows that we don’t trust ourselves to make the right decision for ourselves, and as a result we’re letting something else outside of us make the decision. Even though food rules are (on the surface) only about dietary habits, think about how that could easily bleed out into daily lives and interactions with others. I say this all the time- our relationship with food is a direct reflection of our relationship with ourselves. Do you trust yourself? Do you truly believe in yourself? Do you hold your opinion in the highest regard or do you prioritize the opinions of others above your own?  

But what about when those rules are self imposed? The reflection points for that are similar with a few differences. I would recommend asking yourself, what is the purpose for all of these rules? Who (or what) am I truly appeasing by following these rules? Myself or someone/something else? Were these rules conspired out of love and compassion for myself or out of fear about something (ex: body image, societal pressure)? 

If you want to dive more into this and see how one on one nutrition counseling sessions could be of help to you, schedule a free 15 minute call with me so that we can talk and explore the possibilities.