20 Seemingly Healthy Behaviors That Might Actually be Disordered Eating
On your journey towards food freedom, it’s important to recognize any seemingly healthy behaviors that might be hindering your progress. After all, food freedom is about finding the gray area in food and dropping any rigid black or white thinking.
Disordered eating refers to a host of behaviors. In general, any eating behavior or pattern that includes an obsession or pre-occupation with food.
These behaviors don’t necessarily meet the clinical diagnosis for an eating disorder. They include things like restrictive or compulsive eating or any inflexible eating patterns.
According to the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics, disordered eating can include, but is not limited to:
“Frequent dieting, anxiety associated with specific foods or meal skipping
Chronic weight fluctuations
Rigid rituals and routines surrounding food and exercise
Feelings of guilt and shame associated with eating
Preoccupation with food, weight and body image that negatively impacts quality of life
A feeling of loss of control around food, including compulsive eating habits
Using exercise, food restriction, fasting or purging to "make up for bad foods" consumed”
The following behaviors are often considered healthy and/or harmless but might be a sign of disordered eating. If you can relate to any of these, please don’t worry – instead know that even reading this list is a great first step to working on disordered eating and healing your relationship with food.
You’ll also find resources to help address these behaviors at the end of this blog post.
1. Choosing the lowest calorie option on a menu
Maybe you’re out to eat or ordering dinner and something sounds good to you… until you see the calorie number on it. Ordering the lower/lowest calorie option on a menu simply because it’s the lower calorie option is a way of avoiding your body’s true wants and needs and keeping food choices rigid.
2. Needing to log everything you eat into your calorie counter
I know calorie counting is controversial, but I don’t think it’s a healthy or harmless behavior. If you feel the need to log everything you eat into your tracker – and get anxious about it or pre-occupied with it – it’s a sign that calorie counting has likely gone too far.
3. Grazing on food that “doesn’t count”
This is when you count calories, but graze or mindlessly eat food that “doesn’t count” – food that you wouldn’t put into your calorie counter. You’re hungry for this food, but because it doesn’t fit with your calorie goal or macros, you eat it quickly and mindlessly so that it “doesn’t count.”
4. “Saving up” calories before a big meal
As you heal your relationship with food, big meals can feel really stressful – especially when they include different food than you’re used to. But a big part of a healthy relationship with food is being able to eat normally before meals like this and not get too worked up about them. If you feel like you have to “save up” your calories before a big meal, it might be a sign of disordered eating.
5. Trying to “burn off” food you ate at the gym
Trying to burn off calories or make up for things you ate is a compensatory behavior. Similar to “saving up” before a big meal, feeling like you to “burn off” something you ate is a sign that food isn’t neutral or that you’re trying to make up for things you eat. Any food can be enjoyed without needing to exercise afterwards.
6. Ignoring your hunger because it’s not time to eat
Disordered eating patterns are often rigid and inflexible. Our hunger levels vary day to day, so it also makes sense that the timing we eat would also vary. In this instance however, eating choices are led more by the clock or your eating schedule than your body’s cues.
7. Choosing the healthier food option even when it’s not what you wanted
Let’s say you’re grocery shopping. You’re choosing cheese and opt for the low fat over the full fat cheese to save fat and calories, even though you know you like the taste of full fat cheese better. This is another example of choosing food based on ambiguous food rules, instead of your own preferences.
8. Comparing what you eat to those you’re eating with
This is a tough one and, like everything, not black and white. It’s human nature to compare – we all do it. But, when comparison affects what or how much you eat – for example, you order a salad that you didn’t want because your partner did or stop eating even though you still want more because your friend did – those are behaviors we may want to address.
9. Making sure to leave food on your plate even though you’re hungry for it
It’s okay to eat everything on your plate. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! If you feel like you have to leave some food on your plate though – even when you want it – it’s another example of ignoring what your body is asking for and listening to a rigid food rule instead.
10. Eating “healthy” all day and overeating at night
This scenario is common: you eat “healthy” all day, only to be super hungry and unsatisfied and end up overeating at night. If you feel this way at night, it’s usually a good indication that you’re not eating enough during the day or enough foods you like during the day.
11. Similarly, eating healthy all week and overeating on the weekends
This pattern also often occurs between weeks and weekends. It’s common to eat “healthy” during the week, only to “cheat” on the weekends, and continue to repeat this same cycle, promising you’ll be good on Monday, only to “blow it” by the weekend. Of note, it is normal to eat differently during the weeks and weekends – as long as there’s no guilt, shame, cheating, or compensating involved.
12. Weighing yourself frequently and adjusting your eating behaviors based on the scale
Unless you can look at the scale in a totally neutral way – i.e. weighing yourself, not overanalyzing the number, and moving on with your day – I really don’t recommend weighing yourself. Especially when that number affects how you then carry on with your day – eating less if you think the number was too high or allowing yourself more food if the number is deemed acceptable – it’s not beneficial to step on the scale.
13. Eliminating entire food groups from your diet
Outside of medical necessity, this refers to any time you eliminate entire foods or food groups from your diet simply because you feel like you should. Maybe you read somewhere that a certain food was “bad” or you saw that a celebrity doesn’t eat an entire food group. Unless you have a medical, ethical, or religious reason to avoid a food, there’s otherwise no reason to.
14. Forcing yourself to exercise when you don’t feel like it
It’s one thing to give yourself a little push to exercise when you’re lacking motivation. It’s another thing to force exercise when you’re exhausted, injured, or not taking rest days. Exercise shouldn’t be something you feel like you have to do or feel guilty when you don’t do.
15. Eating based off an ambiguous calorie goal, instead of your body’s hunger cues
This goes back to calorie counting – it often takes us away from our body’s internal hunger cues. Calorie counting can often lead to choosing foods or creating meals based on their calorie numbers and not based on what sounds good. Even more so, this includes times where you skip a meal or let yourself go hungry because you “don’t have” the calories for it.
16. Avoiding social events because of the food
Social events can be really scary as you heal your relationship with food. But over time, they can become something you enjoy – both despite and because of the food. If social events cause anxiety because the unknown food situation or because the food served doesn’t fit your routine, then they’re something we want to work on.
17. Eating “unhealthy” foods and immediately feeling guilty or bad afterwards
With a healthy relationship with food, no foods are seen as good or bad. Food is viewed in a neutral way. On the other hand, this refers to any time you might – consciously or not – view some foods as good and feel guilty or mad at yourself for eating them afterwards.
18. Seeing food as something only meant to provide nourishment, not enjoyment
Food is full of nutrients and nutrition is super important. But food is also about a lot more than that too. It’s about enjoyment, satisfaction, socializing, nostalgia, making memories and so much more. The food we eat shouldn’t just provide nutrients; it should also be enjoyed.
19. Replacing all “unhealthy” food with healthier alternatives
For example, perhaps instead of eating ice cream, you only eat banana “nice cream” (made of simply frozen bananas), even though you really love ice cream. It’s perfectly okay to eat banana nice cream. What’s not okay is totally avoiding real ice cream that you love and only allowing yourself to eat the “healthier” alternative.
20. Not keeping food you like in the house of fear you’ll eat it all
This a common fear, but ideally, once you achieve food freedom, you’ll be able to keep foods in the house without the fear of eating it all at once. You shouldn’t have to avoid buying foods you love. As you work on your relationship with food, you’ll also work on buying – and mindfully eating – prior trigger foods like this.