We can all relate to the feeling of being overwhelmed while facing a wall of cereal boxes in a grocery store, regardless of whether we are living with an eating disorder or not. Every box seems to have a claim of being fat-free, no sugar added, packed with protein, or a great source of fibre. Nutrition labels are already found on food products in grocery stores, and now calories are plastered on menus.
Why? Labels can come in handy for some people, such as those who have a food allergy and need to avoid specific ingredients. They can also help to assist certain people make nutrition decisions based on their specific nutrient needs. For example, pregnant women may require higher levels of certain nutrients to support a healthy pregnancy.
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Nutrition Labels and Eating Disorders
Nutrition labels can make us feel like we are back to elementary school math class, calculating if the number of calories, grams of fat, or carbohydrates in that food can meet our individual needs. Eating disorders love math, but not in a positive or educational way. If your child is living with an eating disorder, their thoughts about food and nutritional content may have become obsessive and disordered.
You may notice that your child is constantly checking the nutrition labels on food and calculating the nutritional content of food items. Recovering from an eating disorder with nutrition labels left and right can be overwhelming and challenging for your child. But with your child’s recovery comes freedom that can involve leaving the math out of food choices and eating a variety of foods that will fuel their body.
Tips in Recovery
Here are some tips to help your child ditch the fear surrounding nutrition labels and focus on their ability to help us understand how different foods can serve our bodies.
Avoid the Labels Altogether
One important way to limit your child’s fear of nutrition labels is for them to avoid them altogether. Instead, your child should try to focus on their internal hunger and fullness cues. If your child is living with an eating disorder, these internal cues may feel lost to them.
This process can definitely be easier said than done, but one way to make it manageable is by covering the nutrition information on menus or packaged food. If possible, store food in reusable containers and throw away the boxes of packaged foods. If you and your child are at a restaurant or ordering food online, read them the menu options out loud. This way, your child will not see the calorie counts on the menu.
When your child is deciding what to eat at a restaurant, motivate your child to choose a meal that is exciting and makes their mouth water. Try to encourage your child to forget these labels ever existed. Your child should also delete any apps on their phone that allows them to count their calories.
In a perfect world where we could zap away diet culture and eating disorders, avoiding nutrition labels altogether could be easily done! Eating disorders are great at tempting your child to look at the caloric content to deem if a food is worthy enough to eat. Try to remind your child that all foods are worthy of eating as long as they aren’t rotten or cooked poorly.
Put the Numbers into Perspective
In today’s society, foods are often mislabeled; the terms “good” or “clean” and “bad” are used when talking about the calories, fat, carbohydrates, and ingredients of foods. There is a misconception that foods lower in these criteria are “good”, and higher foods in these criteria are “bad.” Who gave food these arbitrary titles? The answer is all of us – whether we are living with an eating disorder or not. Instead of looking at our food choices and how they affect our bodies, diet culture has caused us to change how we apply a label and take foods out of context.
Nutrition labels don’t say that a food is good or bad; individuals decide this for themselves. The best way for your child to stop fearing what the nutrition label says is to challenge this mentality. If your child’s bowl of cereal has X amount of calories, carbohydrates, and fat, encourage your child to try to look at it as the energy that their body needs to get them through the day to support their brain and cell functions.
Your child’s body knows what’s best for them. When they fine-tune their ability to listen to their body, they will notice that nutrition labels are just a resource that acts as a support tool. This support tool helps your child (or anyone!) identify where the energy from a food comes from when they need a boost of nutrients and don’t know where to find them.
Eating Disorder Recovery
Nutrition labels don’t have to be scary for your child. Different stages of your child’s recovery can lead to using varying techniques to eliminate the fear of labels. Avoiding nutrition labels and encouraging your child to change the way they talk about food can be small but mighty steps to their eating disorder recovery.
Also, remind your child that it is possible to one day open a menu or look at the back of a package and not care about the calories, fat, carbs, etc. listed. Working through understanding nutrition labels and ditching the idea that food choices can be “good” and “bad” can help eliminate the fear of food labels and make going out for dinner and grocery shopping a lot more fun for your child. When you speak about food around your child, remember to avoid giving food titles such as “good” or “bad.” Recovery is possible for your child. One day, they will no longer see their daily food intake as a math equation.
If you are looking for other strategies to help your child conquer their fear of nutrition labels, you can book a free 15-minute consultation call below with us.
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