You’re right, and this is what I intend to mean by saying this. Many people live within such a context, and need to defer to it. But for people who are able not to, and who find not having this imposed structure works for them, well…I think that’s great.

But there is a different type of planning that can take place so that’s not an issue, and it’s not a difficult one: namely, having food around that does not have to be prepared or that requires only extremely simple preparation.

I think this is an interesting, and good, strategy. But it also concerns me in that, unless you’re doing a lot of cooking ahead of time to make these things available to yourself, you might be missing a lot of variety in your food selection if you only rely on things that are convenient.

when the rest of a person’s schedule is strict and they have no choice but to abide by it, or when they are coming from disordered eating and intuitive eating is too big of a step for them to take.

These are exactly the situations I’m addressing. I’m not meaning to imply that all people should feel obligated to eat a certain way, or follow a certain plan. I just know that intuitive eating (in the demand feeding sense) did not work for me, and does not work for a lot of other people. So this is what I prefer, instead.

In short: I don’t make rules for people’s eating. I believe people should eat whatever and however they want.

Let me back up a bit. It seems to me that much of this is based in cultural assumptions about what a day in a life should look like; that you plan for food consumption to defer, in a sense, to that artificially imposed structure. It may be necessary if you’ve accepted that artificially imposed structure, but it does not then follow that it is the healthiest way to eat; only the healthiest, ostensibly, within that restrictive context. It might very well be a valid technique for dealing with disordered eating as well. But my point is that it’s not inherently necessary or the ultimate in normality and should not be regarded as dogmatic truth. I’m not saying that you’re asserting that, but people do tend to see people like you (i.e. the “experts”) as authoritative and people are also trained in our society to look for and live by provided rules. So I think it’s important to be clear that such rules, including this one, can be used as a tool in a certain context to work toward a certain goal, but are not the be-all and end-all of normal eating.

I grew up with the “three scheduled meals a day plus snack” mentality, and yet it has always felt like a foreign concept to my body. As an adult I dropped the mealtimes and began eating, simply, when my body gave me a little signal — normally not full on raging hunger but more like a nudge — that it was time to eat. Just as it gives me a little nudge when it’s time to pee; or to shift my body to promote circulation; or to rest; etc. This seems to me as normal as it gets, so I am suspicious, always, of anything that says that we can improve on basic bodily functions — assuming they are already normal — by managing them. This is why I react so strongly to this notion that that’s exactly what should be done to children who are beyond infancy. There is not a line that is naturally crossed at which an outside source (the caregiver) suddenly knows better than the inside source (the body.) Unless young children have already been trained into disordered eating (and many are, from infancy,) their bodies will continue to guide them to seek nourishment as is truly needed, including what and when. I think it is an absolute myth that the natural body has to learn to develop hunger signals through structure. Structure may help them re-emerge; it doesn’t create them. They are already there, given to us by nature, we just have to not interfere with them.

There are, yes, some practical considerations to take into account. Your point — “what often happens in practice is that you DON’T get fed because of practical constraints. So either you’re eating so quickly that you extinguish hunger signals in the long-term, or you become SO hungry that you scare yourself and set up a sense of food insecurity” — is an important one. But there is a different type of planning that can take place so that’s not an issue, and it’s not a difficult one: namely, having food around that does not have to be prepared or that requires only extremely simple preparation. For me, that does not engender obsession or stress because there is not a great amount of attention that needs to be paid to it. What does engender obsession and stress is to start adding in specific times and places and prepared meals, via “rule”.

And frankly, I don’t want my kids to learn to depend on waiting for what’s put before them, and when, to shape their eating life. They are not made insecure by not having that; they are made secure by having an abundance of food and knowing that it is available any time they need it. Again, I think your plan is only reasonable and useful in specific situations: when the rest of a person’s schedule is strict and they have no choice but to abide by it, or when they are coming from disordered eating and intuitive eating is too big of a step for them to take.

I have Crohn’s disease with multiple small-bowel strictures, which means that I’m basically a bran muffin away from a life-threatening intestinal blockage. I’d love to “eat mostly plants,” but I can’t digest them. It’s a luxury of health as well as class to be able to choose a diet based on environmental or moral concerns. Is a cherry Pop-Tart good for me? No, but it won’t result in hospitalization, so in that sense, it’s much better than a banana.

I’ve never seen this topic addressed — that most food guidelines are for healthy people, and sick people are ignored. And the result of that is that I get a lot of lectures and dirty looks for eating junk food. I don’t love junk either, but: I weigh 93 pounds. I can usually only manage one meal a day. Some days even that doesn’t stay down. So when I CAN eat, I need calories, not tips on becoming a locavore. My body knows that, and I’ve learned that it will tell me what to do. If I’m craving sausage gravy over biscuits, it’s because I need protein, carbs and fats to keep functioning. (Also, they’re fucking delicious.)

Seeing this fact acknowledged — by an expert, no less — made my day. Thanks Michelle!

There are many times I do not have food in the house (like the end of the month when food stamps and social security have run out, i.e. now) and have to rely on creativity and the generosity of others. I may go a day without eating, and then find myself with enough food the next day (though little choice over what I eat). Many times I decide that I’m going to start eating regular meals and then find myself stymied by the fact that I have no breakfast at breakfast time, no snacks of any kind or maybe only snacks and no larger meals, etc.

I have been trained to expect hunger and not to have much control over satisfying that hunger. I might go half a month eating regular meals and half a month eating whatever I can get whenever I can get it. Now I have noticed that even when I have food and it is a time of plenty, it takes me a little while to adjust and I tend to overeat (which also means I run out of food sooner!). By the time my body gets on track with a regular schedule (which I agree is very freeing), the month is winding down and I have to mess it up again.

Unfortunately, I think most people interpret the idea of portion control (and even something as benign-sounding as “moderation”) to mean meeting an externally-determined standard. And this takes away trust, and permission, and makes people feel like bad eaters.

I would like to defend the ADA though. I don’t think they are trying to please people when they make such statements, but it’s the nature of these position papers that can be misused on misunderstood. You mention that “if consumed in moderation with appropriate portion size…” makes the message ineffective, but people who are reading this message are not learning how to get in touch with their hunger cues. They are not learning about mindful eating. So telling people all foods are ok without any mention of amounts can backfire.

If people learn how to self control how much they eat because they feel satisfied or fulfill the hunger needs, then such statements are not necessary. Until then, portion control will always be brought up. That’s why there are dietitians, psychologists, and other health professionals putting mindfulness into use and teaching it to their clients. Diets don’t work, and counting calories and points can not be sustained.

And that’s why posts like yours are much needed!

Thank you!

It think it’s amazing that THE Ellyn Satter reads your blog and has commented on it. I agree that she is the authority on the eating habits of children. Everything that she says in her books just makes so much sense. I do what I can to advise people to think about her principles. The interesting thing here is that one can easily make connections between what she says and hindsight. I’ve discussed some of Ms. Satter’s ideas with people and the lightbulbs shine brightly.

I can honestly say that after reading portions of “Your Child’s Weight: Helping Without Harming” during my WIC rotation, I decided that I really wanted to work with the infant feeding guidelines from pregnancy on. I really want to work with kids.

Thank you Ellyn Satter for your brilliant books.

When everything else in my life has proven that I benefit a lot from structure and order, because I’m a sensitive and emotional person – and knowing what to do when and when what happens is reassuring.

Now, I may just try a more structured approach to my eating pattern.

On a sidenote, there’s this government-sponsored guideline about fruits and vegetables over here… “eat two pieces of fruit and 200 grams of veggies a day!!111″ It’s always annoyed the hell out of me, but I couldn’t quite say why until reading this post.

I’m sure they’re trying to please people on both sides, but I feel it makes the statement less effective, overall.

And thank you for commenting. It’s always gratifying to hear from the originator of the concepts one is discussing!

the petulant eating style

This is such a perfect way of describing that particular phenomenon. It is very, very true that lots of people “rebellion eat” in response to restrictive food experiences. I’m pretty sure I did for a while after I stopped dieting, and it was very painful…but kind of funny, too, looking back on it. Truly petulant, in the way only a little kid can be.

To her *immense* credit, my mother has apologized for taking on the role of the Food Police when I was younger – given the shit that both my parents received around food and body size, it’s surprising that I came out as unscarred as I did. However, I NEVER would have been able to start breaking out of the petulant eating style without HAES and the FA community – I am so thankful to have found these philosophies, and people’s different takes on them. (Hadn’t heard the ‘structure as a way to curb the anxiety/ perfectionism involved in DF’ idea before – I’m intrigued by that, and super excited to hear your take on gender issues.)

Even more awesome than the ‘what’ of the communities, though, is the ‘how.’ I’m consistently blown away by your kindness and supportive approach. If I ever get over what I call the ‘humiliation hump’ and do decide to see a nutritionist (after careful HAES screening), it will be largely due to you.

Also? I adore the structure of your comment replies (v. easy to read). Yay technology!

People with different health conditions, or even just different bodily preferences/genetics, need different kinds of food for optimal health. That’s one reason why variety is so important on a grand scale. It’s also why promoting certain things as “healthy” and certain other things as “unhealthy” is ridiculously simplistic, at best. It’s akin to saying certain foods are poison, which we know just isn’t true.

Take, for instance, the big controversy over hospitals serving “junk food” in their food courts. Do I think some lighter options should be available? Yes, in the service of providing a variety to choose from. Do I think the “junk food” should be removed? Absolutely not. Here’s why:

In hospital, patients are nominally fed by the nutrition service. A lot of patients find that food good enough, and that’s fine. But the budgets for food service in hospitals tend to be really, really low, and the food quality/amounts/variety tends to kind of suck.

Therefore, a lot of patients end up getting food from the food court, whether their family brings it to them, or they shuffle down there themselves. And in some cases? This is a fucking GODSEND. For cancer patients who aren’t eating the nasty hospital food and are dropping weight like crazy, having easy access to a Big Mac can hugely improve their chances of getting through treatment without being terribly malnourished.

I have laboured and laboured and laboured with a dietitian trying to get enough food into a severely malnourished patient. But because most of the foods provided by the hospital service were not-super-calorie dense (because, you know, that’s “not healthy!”) we couldn’t do it, and the patient was getting really fucking sick of trying to eat 12,000 moderately-caloric snacks a day, and sick of us coming in to push food on him. We actually WANTED him to start getting junk food from outside, because it was the only way he’d get his nutritional needs met without eating snacks and meals 24/7.

But no one seems to think of this shit when they’re labelling foods as healthy and not-healthy. Sick people are hardly ever considered, and “normal, healthy” people are hugely privileged and catered to. This bothers me on many levels.