Women who accept their bodies the way they are seem to be more likely to follow principles of healthy eating, says researcher Tracy Tylka, from Ohio State University. Tylka said that women's typical reasons for changing their diet - a dissatisfaction with their bodies - could backfire. "The message that women often hear is that some degree of body dissatisfaction is healthy because it could help them strive to take care of their bodies. But it may be just the opposite: an appreciation of your body is needed to really adopt better eating habits." Tylka's study appears in the Journal of Counseling Psychology and focuses on intuitive eating in an attempt to find out what constitutes healthy eating, rather than the more prevalent focus in psychology on eating disorders. Other studies have determined that intuitive eating has three components: unconditional permission to eat when hungry and to eat what food you desire; eating for physical rather than emotional reasons; and reliance on internal hunger and fullness cues to determine when and how much to eat.
While parts of intuitive eating are non-controversial, Tylka said many people can't believe people should be able to eat when they want, and whatever foods they want. "There's this belief that if you give people unconditional permission to eat, they are going to binge and add on a lot of pounds. But that's not what we have found," she said.
Tylka's study found that women who reported they were intuitive eaters also reported higher levels of appreciation for their own body. They were more likely to agree with statements like "Despite its flaws, I accept my body for what it is." They were less likely to spend a lot of time thinking about how their body appears to others, and more time considering how their body feels and functions.
The results showed that these intuitive eaters felt more unconditional acceptance of their bodies by parents and others when they were growing up, and felt that those around them now accepted their bodies for what they were. "When women feel that the people in their life accept their body, they don't feel like they need to lose weight or tone up to be worthwhile," Tylka said. "That seems to be directly related to eating intuitively."
While her research has shown eating intuitively is associated with a lower BMI, Tylka said that doesn't mean all women who follow these principles will match the thin models they see in the media. "Healthy eating is associated with psychological well-being in a lot of different ways," Tylka said. She added that this research shows that healthy, adaptive eating is more than just avoiding the habits that lead to eating disorders. "By teaching intuitive eating, we can help people learn how to eat adaptively, and not just tell them what not to do and what to avoid."
Source: Ohio State University
